


To Him Who in the Love of Nature

by wayfared



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Coma, Happy Ending, M/M, Minor Character Death, No Sex, Sorry Not Sorry, Traveling, as usual with literally all of my fics, car crash, i'll probably think of more later, idk what to tag but just be careful if ur triggered, implied depression, it's not specifically said but yeah, just a lot of sadness if you're not into that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 12:36:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 71,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3692529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wayfared/pseuds/wayfared
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“Enjoy your stay in Svalbard?” the cab driver asked over his shoulder.</i><br/>“Amazing,” Harry answered for Louis, flashing his signature smile.<br/>“Good,” the man nodded in approval. “Everyone is lucky in Svalbard. You're lucky, too.” </p><p> </p><p>Or, after Louis' delicate world comes crashing down upon him, he takes off for the loneliest place he can think of. But, in the midst of the whirling snow, there's always a warm fireplace to come home to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Him Who in the Love of Nature

**Author's Note:**

> i watched an episode of house hunters international featuring Svalbard, and thus this giant monster was born. i don't know how it got this long, please don't ask me. but thank god it's done and i can finally post after having to push the date back so far. 
> 
> i'd like to issue some well deserved thank yous to everyone who supported me in this for i think over six months. norma, thank you for helping me figure out the plot in the beginning stages, and for being my beta and cheerleader and number one fan for all these months and years in my writing. i love you and you are so important to me. also: zoe, thank you so so incredibly much for doing the art and playlist for this!!! honestly, i'm so proud and thankful that i got to work with a close friend on this thing, and the art you made is so beautiful i'm in tears. thank you for doing all that, for beta-ing, and for cheering me on and showering me in compliments to keep me going. you and your art/playlist making prowess mean the world to me <3\. i'd also like to thank tiffany, for egging me on, reading it, and generally being an awesome friend, and to logan, my best friend and another one of my cheerleaders. and thank you to my english teacher for inspiring me in our romantic's period poem study, can you tell i wrote practically all of this around that? and i'm probably forgetting a lot, but this is getting way too long. THANK YOU GUYS.
> 
> anyways, i can't believe i'm finally able to post this. a lot of it was hastily edited, but i love it a lot and i hope you like it just as much as i did writing it. i feel awkward for having to post this late easter's day, but happy easter, if you celebrate that! i do not own one direction, zayn, or any of their friends/family/etc, though i do want to poke harry's dimples very desperately. happy reading ! <3
> 
> i've added a note at the end explaining where all the quotes and everything came from!  
> [zoe's fic playlist](http://8tracks.com/dunshine/all-i-have-all-i-need) / [zoe's tumblr](http://dunshine.tumblr.com/) / [my tumblr](http://charrysoda.tumblr.com/)

 

“ _If there is a paradise on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here.” - Amir Kuhsrau_

 

 

Louis' thumb hovered over the callbutton on his phone. He wondered what would happen if he pressed it, like he'd been yearning to for the past thirty minutes. Would he be met with static? It seemed unlikely, but a possibility is a possibility. Would her lovely, soothing voice answer the phone? Louis' heart jumped at the thought. Would it be a combination, a distinct pattern in the crackles and high-pitched tones coming through the speaker? Or, in the end, would no one pick up at all, and an automated, pre-recorded message would initiate, robotic and tinny and telling Louis what he already knew. What he would always know.

A sudden commotion on the other side of the room shocked Louis into jamming his thumb onto the screen as his eyes shot up. As a faint buzzing sound floated from the phone, Zayn blew the front door of their flat wide open and hustled in, a bag of groceries in either arm. He met Louis' stare almost immediately, and his eyebrows shot up before lowering into a smile.

“Hi,” Zayn greeted, moving to set the bags down on the counter of the small, grimy kitchen two feet away from the door. “Why are you home?”

“Called in sick,” Louis shrugged, tearing his eyes off his roommate running a hand through his frankly perfect quiff and fixing them back on the phone. He was sick, honestly. His mind was sick, and his heart.

“ _I'm sorry, the number you have called has been disconnected and cannot be reached,_ ” a metallic woman's voice sang softly from the device, and before she could go any further, Louis pressed end call and went back to the contact screen.

Zayn sighed from the kitchen, pausing in his unpacking. A six pack, some cigarettes, a bag of microwave potatoes.

“Louis,” he began, fingers still closed around the handle of the snack cabinet. “You have to stop sometime.” His voice wasn't soft, it didn't brush Louis' ears like grass felt during a lie-down in the backyard. The harsh tone was disconcerting after spending the past eight hours in near complete silence. At one point, Louis had a football game playing in the background, but even that was too loud and disruptive.

Louis pressed the call button again. He wanted to hear that robot woman's voice one more time. One more reminder.

Zayn shuffled into the living room and plopped down on Louis' feet where they were propped up on the couch.

“ _I'm sorry, the number you have called has_ -” Zayn snatched the phone from his hand, powered it off, and jammed it between the couch cushions in one swift move.

“Louis.”

This time, Louis sighed. He hated the bile that rose up in his throat at the reprimanding frown on Zayn's face. Because, well, friends are supposed to do that, right? Stop other friends from doing destructive things. Best friends shut off phones and join them with their long lost cheeto puff brethren, right? They do, he reasons, if Zayn still considered them best friends like Louis didn't.

“I'd really like my phone back,” he said, staring down at the crack between the cushions.

“You can't do that to yourself,” Zayn shot back.

“I can do whatever the hell I want,” Louis retorted, and reached to shuffle around for the phone. Zayn intercepted and grabbed his wrist, placing it firmly back in his lap.

“It's not healthy.”

Louis pouted and tightened the knitted blanket around his shoulders. He didn't say anything back, it was no use. Zayn was the almighty God of Grief, a hero amongst young adults with recent losses, all knowing in how to properly get over your issues and return to normal life in two short months. He should publish a book, really. But first, give Louis his phone back.

The television blared to life, and Louis huffed and turned to Manchester United vs. Liverpool instead of this annoying brat with an ego. He has had everything handed to him on a silver platter, seriously, all four of his grandparents are still alive, how can he-

“You've called in sick twice already this week.” How rude, now he's interrupting trains of thought.

“That's because I haven't.”

Zayn furrowed his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I quit three days ago. So I was lying, I haven't been calling in sick.”

“ _Louis_ ,” he groaned, “why on earth did you go and do that?”

“Wasn't feeling it anymore.”

“Louis, I pulled so many strings to get you that job, why the hell did you think that was a good idea?”

“We just weren't gelling anymore. He was a dickhead, his writing sucks, and he changes his coffee order every single time I make a run.”

Zayn just rubbed his eyes and let out a long, exhausted groan.

“Anyway, I'm leaving.”

“You're always leaving,” Zayn said through his hands.

Louis flared and it took all his might to bite back a seething response. How dare Zayn, how dare he - “I mean it this time. I'm leaving the country.”

The rubbing paused. Zayn peered out through his fingers. “Wait, you mean it? Like, you're actually leaving?”

“Yes, dumb ass. I've told you this before.”

“Yeah, but I thought you were, like, joking. And drunk. And bawling your eyes out in the bath tub. How was I supposed to take you seriously with throw up all down your front?”

“I'd rather you not drag up memories of that night.”

“Sorry. But, like, you're leaving?”

“Yeah,” Louis said, fingering a loose thread on the hem of the blanket. “Booked the flights yesterday.”

“Yesterday, Jesus,” Zayn breathed, digging his thumbs back into his eye sockets. “What about your sisters?”

“They have Dan.”

“Dan's not a substitute for their brother, Christ, Louis-”

“Dan is happy to take care of them and I trust him. And without – without, I don't think I'm very needed anymore.”

“That's not  _true-_ ”

“The girls have the money and they have Dan, and Lottie's fourteen now, she can manage it.”

“Isn't that what you wanted to prevent, though? Didn't you never want Lottie to have to manage?”

Louis had to glare at the ceiling to will the salty water away from the brim. Deep breaths. He had a point, but Lottie doesn't have to 'manage' at all if she has Dan. And the flights were already booked. “The flights are already booked.”

Before them, the screen erupted in cheers and flashes of white and red as Man U scored its second goal of the game. The announcer spoke at a thousand miles per hour, buzzing and replaying the corner kick goal five times for the audience.

“Where are you going?” Zayn asked, voice quieter and less furious than before.

“Svalbard.”

Zayn blanked. “I don't even know what that is.”

“Neither did I, before yesterday,” Louis shrugged. He threw a small, lifeless smile at his flatmate, picked up the remote, and filled the room with the sounds of a football stadium too far away to matter.

 

 

Louis had debated extensively whether or not to visit his family before leaving, more often than not leaning towards the back door option where no one would know until he was waist deep in snow, but as it was, his Corolla was currently parked in front of Hayfield Secondary School and Louis was fighting off the moment he'd have to step out into the frigid March air. This was a compromise, he thought to himself.

A distant bell rung, and not two seconds later did a swarm of teenagers exit the front of the school, tripping over the steps in their anticipation to get home and probably take their pants off. Louis could relate, except for the pants part, because time after secondary school usually meant working anyway.

The moment he spotted a familiar head of blonde hair stream out of the heavy wooden doors, Louis slipped out the car door and stood by the gates. Lottie was chatting with a girl from her grade that had probably come over once or twice but Louis didn't have the brain capacity to remember, when she noticed her brother leaning against the wrought iron fencing. She pursed her lips, waved goodbye to the girl, and walked over hesitantly to meet him.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“What, no hi?”

“Hello, Louis,” Lottie rolled her eyes. “Why are you here?”

“A brother can't show up and lovingly offer his little sister a ride home?”

“Well, I don't object, but you have work until, like, seven, and frankly, you look like crap.”

Louis bit his lip. He did indeed look like crap, from the fact that he hasn't showered in a good week to the ugly, frighteningly mysterious stains slobbered all over his shirt. An outfit that matched and represented him as a person.

“I quit,” he replied through gritted teeth. “So let's go.”

Lottie didn't say anything else until they were buckled in and Louis was trying to maneuver the car out of the parking lot. The ground was wet with recent rain, English mothers are terrible drivers, and Louis' soulless mood really drained his driving ability, so it was proving more of a challenge than previously anticipated.

“You quit your job?”

“Yeah,” Louis said. “A journalist's assistant just really wasn't doing it for me. You know, I'll never be able to read another Nick Grimshaw article without wanting to puke all over his misuse of commas.”

Lottie laughed. It was tiny and lifeless, but a victory nonetheless.

“How's school?” he asked.

“Could be better,” Lottie shrugged. “Trying to get my grades up again, but it's hard, cause you know.”

“I know.” It's hard to keep up with anything. “Going to that dance soon? Dan got an e-mail about appropriate dance attire yesterday.”

“Probably not.”

Louis nodded. He understood.

It was a minute before either of them spoke again. The car filled with silence as Louis rolled through the streets, focused on the way his fingers shook where they gripped the steering wheel.

“I, uh, I have something to tell you.”

Lottie looked up. Her eyes challenged him to continue.

“I'm leaving.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm just gonna be gone. Not for that long, I promise, just a little bit.”

“What?” Lottie's mouth opened in surprise. “You're leaving? Where? How long?”

“Svalbard. And just for a little while, I promise, I'll be back before you know it.”

“Why?”

Louis took in a deep breath. Truth be told, he didn't exactly know why, all he knew was that he needed to get out of here.

“If this is about Mum-”

“Lottie,” Louis interrupted, a punch hitting him square in the chest.

“It is about Mum, isn't it?” He didn't reply. “Louis, we all miss her.”

“I know you miss her. God, I could never forget that. I just, I need to go, to clear my head.”

“I don't even know where Svalbard is.”

“It's an archipelago halfway between Norway and the North Pole. Polar bears, the Northern Lights, all that jazz.”

“Okay,” Lottie nodded. She didn't add anything else onto that. It probably didn't matter to her where he went, just that he was gone. Well, if it was somewhere like Fuji, the situation might be otherwise.

The car turned into their neighborhood. Louis had no plans on entering that house, so he had to make this quick.

“I'm going to send money every week so you and the girls can have spending money for yourselves. I'll send presents, I promise, and-”

“You can't leave us, Louis.”

“I'm not – Lottie, I'm not leaving you. I'd never leave you. I just need to do this for myself.” His voice was shaky and his breath was shaky and his fingers on the steering wheel shook dangerously close to the next accident.

The car halted in front of a brown two story town home with a pink Barbie tricycle thrown down in the square of front lawn grass. As soon as it was put in park, Lottie threw herself over the consul, wrapping both her arms around her brother's shoulders.

“I love you,” she whispered, and the words stung in his throat. Louis shifted and wrapped his arms around her middle, burying his face in her neck.

“I love you more,” he breathed, muffled by the uniform and the hair in his face. It was true, it was always true. Lottie was one of the best things to happen in Louis' life. They were a team, Louis and Lottie, a fighting team in the household. He loved her to the moon and back, and he loved the rest of the girls to the moon and back, and he loved his mother like he needed to breathe.

They sat like that for a while, awkwardly embracing over the middle of the car, Lottie trying not to sob into spaghetti stains.

“I miss her,” she bawled, her body convulsing with the words.

“I miss her, too.” He missed her like he needed to breathe. “We all miss her.”

She clutched at the back of his shirt. Louis choked back his tears, trying his hardest to remain her solid rock to cry on. He felt the raw, gaping hole in his chest, the scraggly scraps of skin flapping, the dull, mindless pain throbbing.

It took ten minutes for Lottie to pry herself off, slouching in the passenger seat and rubbing at the mascara streaked down her cheeks.

“We'll be alright,” Louis said, although he wasn't quite sure who he was saying it to. “I'll be back before you know it.”

“I'll miss you if you leave.”

“Dan will take good care of you and the girls,” he reassured.

“It's not the same,” Lottie protested weakly, hiccuping through her words.

Louis ran a hand through her tangled hair. “I love you. And tell the others I love them, too.”

Lottie nodded. She opened her mouth as if to protest more, but shut it when she realized the resistance was futile. Louis was leaving.

“Tell Dan that I expect him to take good care of you. There's a secret snack stash in the hole behind the third cabinet in the kitchen, Fizzy gets abnormally scared during thunderstorms, and don't forget to clean the cat's litter box.”

Lottie eased open the car door, setting a foot onto the pavement. She glanced back, weary eyes training on her brother's.

“Hey, Lottie, I love you.” Just to reiterate it one more time. You can never say it enough.

She gave him a watery smile. “Love you too.”

The door shut softly, and Lottie turned up the stone pathway. She picked up the tricycle from the yard and dragged it next to the side gate, hiked her book bag higher on her shoulder, and turned the brass handle of the front door. At the last second, she glanced back and sent a small wave to her brother, and even from the street, Louis could see her sorrowful smile before she disappeared into the house.

 

 

Manchester Airport, by God's grace, had installed a cell phone parking lot in 2012. It was small, only holding twenty or so spaces crowding a giant LED board with different departures and arrivals scrawling across the screen, but at five in the morning, Louis' Corolla was the only occupant. Zayn stared blearily at the board, hunched over and small in the driver's seat. Louis himself was toying with his phone, flipping it from hand to hand in an attempt to jostle a little energy through his sluggish morning veins.

“Fuck you for booking a flight so early,” Zayn hissed for the third time today, rubbing his eyes.

“There were no other ones available.” It wasn't a lie, there hadn't been, but a large part of Louis did not give a single shit about how Zayn felt about leaving so early. He also had been the one to decide to pull an all nighter instead of taking a cat nap before driving Louis from Doncaster to Manchester for the closest airport that would take him to Oslo, Norway.

They sat in silence, only their heavy breathing making way through the sleepy darkness that permeated the morning. A plane took off in the not-so-distance, the roaring engines disrupting the atmosphere.

“Listen,” Zayn began, untucking his arms and sitting up straighter.  _Flight NZ14, Destination Oslo, Boarding Time 6:00, Gate 23_ moved across the screen, and Louis gripped his phone a bit tighter. “I know I haven't been, like, the greatest friend over the past few months.” Louis scoffed and rolled his eyes, turning to stare out the side window. “I just don't really know what to do with situations like this. And you know that. So, like, if I'm the reason you're leaving, then I'm sorry, and you shouldn't go just because of me.”

“You really think you're that important to me to push me to leave the country?” Louis fixed Zayn with an incredulous look, and he seemed taken aback. Good.

“I – I guess not. No.”

“No, don't think so highly of yourself. I'm making this decision for myself.”

“I'm sorry.” He looked a bit upset, but Louis didn't have the soul to apologize for his crude behavior. He was up to here with Zayn. Glancing down at the time on his phone, Louis noticed it was 5:10. If he wanted to make his flight on time, he'd have to leave now.

“Let's go,” Louis said, and Zayn nodded, putting the car in drive and heading for the entrance to the terminal. In two minutes, they were already there, the car idling next to the sidewalk outside the terminal entrance. Both of them tumbled out of the car, heading around for Louis' three bags. One rolling suitcase, a duffel bag, and a backpack stuffed full of his laptop, chargers, notebooks and pencils, and various books that he couldn't bear to leave behind. The duffel held a crap ton of winter clothes that he hoped would suffice, having bought them after a short Google search and a trip to the shops alone, of course. The suitcase was filled with clothes, although the amount of dirty clothes that were stashed into it was pretty sad. Zayn had offered to clean them, but Louis had just sighed and thrown them in. His lack of caring was getting a bit scary at this point.

“So,” Zayn said as Louis stopped to face him one last time before crossing the sliding glass doors under the  _Terminal 2_ sign. He seemed nervous and two seconds away from power napping right on his suitcase. “I, uh, I want to give you something.” Louis raised an eyebrow. The last time Zayn got Louis a present it was a single Rolling Stones CD, and the sticker on the back said two pounds. He patted his thick leather jacket and reached in the fur lining to pull out... a book. A book. Well, at least he knows something that Louis likes.

The cover was new and shiny, obviously recently bought. The front was adorned by a blonde, white girl smiling and clutching a Norwegian flag, and a plate of meatballs in the corner. Across the top, it read  _Easy English to Norwegian Dictionary and Phrasebook for Beginners_.

“A dictionary,” Louis said blankly.

“Yeah, uh. I looked up Svalbard, and it's a part of Norway? So obviously they speak Norwegian. I wanted to give you something to, like, help. Up there. Also, it's sort of a peace offering.”

“A peace offering.”

“That's what I said.”

Louis tried his absolute hardest to restrain the urge to smack Zayn upside the head and leave him on the pavement. “Well, I appreciate the sentiment,” he replied, but the tone made it clear that no, he didn't.

“Right,” Zayn nodded, his flat, lifeless fringe falling across his eyes. Louis shoved the book into his backpack and shouldered the duffel bag. “Bye, I guess.”

Louis didn't have time for goodbye niceties. Love you, Zayn, but I don't love you, and you lost your cred a long time ago, so have a nice life without me in your hair. “Bye,” he said simply, gripped the suitcase handle, and rolled through the doors of Manchester Airport.

Forty minutes later, he slumped over in the window seat of the plane, cramped, cold, and beyond tired. Clutching his phone in his hands, he contemplated pulling up  _Mummy_ 's contact screen and calling before the plane took off, just to hear the woman's voice. He knew the entire automated message by heart, every inflection, or lack thereof, in her mechanical voice. Instead, he landed on Lottie's message feed. The last was from a week ago, asking if he could bring over pizza because Dan was out late and there was nothing in the house.

_To Lots <333: On the plane for Oslo. I love you, Lottie. Tell the girls I love them, too, and tell Dan that he's a good man. If ever anything catastrophic happens, call me. Miss you already._

He pressed send before he could backtrack. If he missed her so much, so much it already scratched at the empty cavity in his chest, why was he leaving?

For himself, he reminded himself. For once, he was doing this for himself. There was nothing stopping him now. In fact, the stewardess would probably stop him from getting off the plane, and then what would he want?

Louis peered out at the lazy sun climbing over the horizon as his fingers tapped on the Contacts app again. Holding the phone to his ear, he listened to the tones, waiting for his mum to pick up.

“Excuse me, sir,” a woman called, but it wasn't from the phone, and Louis looked up to see a stewardess pointing at his ear. “We're about to take off, please shut off your cell and refrain from using it.” She smiled, a little too brightly for six am, and Louis nodded a sorry before going to end the call.

“ _I'm sorry, the number -_ ”

Louis pocketed the phone and leaned back to watch the take off through the window. The man in the middle seat was large and already snoring, his sausage nose quivering with the effort of his grunts. It was kind of gross, but so was Louis, in his shirt from yesterday, so they were equal human beings. Probably on more levels than he knew. Maybe this man had also recently lost his mother, and maybe he was sleeping off the grief. Louis couldn't imagine that it was as bad at fifty, though, so this guy was alright. Louis, on the other hand, stared directly into the sun.

 

 

“Passengers, please buckle your seat belts,” a thickly accented woman's voice floated through the otherwise quiet plane. “The aeroplane is beginning its descent.”

The voice was a vision at the edges of Louis' dream. He felt soft blades of grass tickle his ears and cheek, and the sun soaked his body on the warm summer afternoon. Soft laughter rang through his head, and the heavy weight on his stomach shifted with it. Louis reached down to card his finger's through Lottie's hair, blinking his eyes open to watch their mother tell a story on the other blanket laid out in the backyard. Phoebe screeched with laughter, her baby pudge legs careening towards her mum. She expressed no discomfort when the little girl toppled onto her lap, her expression heart achingly soft.

“ _Mum, Mum_ ” Lottie giggled, “ _tell the story of when Louis got pecked to death by geese again._ ”

Louis rolled his eyes, but the smile threatening to overtake his face betrayed him, and his mum laughed as she went on. Felicite in particular loved this one, always cackled and brought it up so she would tell it again and everyone would relive the worst experience Louis had ever had to endure. He hated it, but she loved it. Her face shone, and sun beams fell from her cheeks as she recounted Louis challenging a gang of pond geese to a duel with his foam sword. God, she was so beautiful. Tresses of brown curls fell from behind her ears as she shook her head at the imagery of three geese squawking after toddler Louis.

“ _Louis,_ ” she said, “ _you tell this part better than me. How did you end up in the lake again?_ ”

Louis pouted into the grass, shaking his head. He would never repeat that event again, as long as he lived. His mum rolled her eyes back and opened her mouth to continue.

“ _So they were pond geese, Fizz,_ ” she began, flashing a smile, “... and welcome to Svalbard. It's a lovely negative nine degrees Celsius, and the skies are grey with a small chance of snow...”

Louis jerked awake, tearing his cheek from the frozen window of the plane. Fluorescent lights hit his blinking eyes, and he whipped around in panic.

Oh. He was on a plane. In Svalbard. They were about to land in Svalbard. A high pitched whistling noise sang through the air, and Louis felt his stomach lift as the plane counted its last few seconds to impact.

He shuddered with it, unable to connect with where he was. In his mind, he was back in the backyard, reliving the memory of the last time his mother was truly happy. There'd been this medication, and the English clouds had cleared just for them. Her bubbling laugh bounced in his head, gentle yet mischievous, just like she always said he was.

Blinking back tears, he faced the window and watched the runway speed past them. Mountains loomed before him, ethereal and greedy in the dreary March skies. And there was snow, too, piles of it coating the ground and tumbling over the edge of the runway. All of it was too gloomy. Louis wished desperately to dive back into his dream and be with his mum again.

The plane slowed and screeched to a halt, and the noise rose steadily as people unbuckled belts and ducked into the aisle to grab their bags from the overhead. Louis continued gazing at the mountains, wanting them to swallow him whole. Instead, the woman beside Louis accidentally grabbed his shoulder as support, and her apology shook him out of the haze he had dug himself into.

“It's okay,” he said, shooting her a small smile. She disappeared into the line parading down the aisle, and Louis sighed. He might as well join them.

With his backpack on both shoulders, a thicker jacket covering him, and a clearer sense of reality, Louis shuffled along at the back of the line. On his way out, a stewardess gave him a friendly grin and told him to enjoy his stay in Svalbard, like she thought for sure he was doing this to enjoy himself.

In a way, he was. He wanted to enjoy himself, definitely. It just wasn't a reachable option.

As soon as Louis stepped one foot out of the tiny commercial plane, a frigid air hit him like a brick wall, punching the breath out. His cheeks colored and his breath came out in little huffs as he hustled down the metal staircase, following the ant line of passengers heading towards the one room terminal of the airport.

Upon closer inspection, Svalbard was a lot more breathtaking. Despite the lack of visible sun, the fresh snow twinkled and sparkled, shining right in Louis' eye. The grey mountains held a certain amount of majesty, their snow covered plateau peaks held high with an air of royalty. And the ocean was unforgettable. For a moment, Louis got lost in the stone grey waves that washed up on the shore too far away to properly make out. They roared in their distance, eating at the snow and frozen dirt that met its edge. The waves were hungry, the snow soft, and the mountains princes among the common man. Kings, even.

Someone pushed Louis from behind, and he jolted towards the airport. It was surprisingly modern for such a far away place. The curves of the ceiling and giant glass windows met Louis with the same amount of loftiness that the mountains did, high yet beckoning. As he entered the building, warm air gushed over him, and the relief was overwhelming, to say the least. Jeez, and only after a few short moments in the wild. How would Louis fare for the next however long he was here?

A customs man greeted Louis at the counter, politely asking for his passport and travel papers.

“You, everyone is very lucky in Svalbard,” he spoke in broken English, beaming as his index finger trailed over the passport. “No required visa to stay here. That's why everyone comes.” His eyes crinkled and he shook his shock of jet black hair. “All good here, Mr. Tomlinson. Enjoy your stay in the beautiful Svalbard.”

“Thank you,” Louis replied, accepting his passport and papers, genuinely feeling a surprising warmth at the friendliness of the customs man. He crossed his fingers that everyone was so kind here. The population, he had researched, was about two and a half thousand, so any jerks had a high possibility of being run into any time, all the time.

The luggage belt only took five minutes, what with the very few people landing here, and the fact that Fizzy had insisted on decorating his suitcase with Hello Kitty stickers two years ago. It gave him a sense of pride to carry that around with him.

It was only then, in the midst of about twenty people and a massive, booming, curved room, that Louis had the realization that he had  _no idea what the fuck he was doing._

Where was he to stay? What was he to do? Where the – he can't even read Norwegian. He hasn't got the first clue what anything in Norwegian is, and he expected himself just to pop over and be alright and -

 Breathe. Calm, Tomlinson. You can't have a panic attack within the first five minutes of arriving at your destination. Fuck, where the hell was everyone leaving to, was there even a  _hotel_? Wait, yes, of course there was, don't be a dumb ass. Louis swiveled around in his spot, the duffel bag banging at his hip as he scanned the room, past a line of people with pamphlets twisted in their fingers, past rows upon rows of airport chairs filled with all of one person, until his eyes landed on a small desk in the corner with the sign _Kundeservice_ , and below it in smaller print,  _Customer Service._  Oh, thank God, English was a prominent language here. Hurriedly, he dragged his bags over, approaching the clean cut lady behind the desk.

“Excuse me,” he started, placing a hand on the counter to grab her attention.

“What can I help you with?” Her voice had a clear accent, somewhere between Russian and Polish, but the English was perfect.

“Where could I find a room to stay?”

The blonde woman gave him a strange look. “Well, we only have one large hotel here in Svalbard, as you should know.”

“Right.” Of course he knew that.

“I can book you a room here if you want, and then give you directions?”

“Yes, that would be lovely,” he sighed, his heart singing praises. A room, with a warm bed and thermal jammies and a  _shower;_ he's starting to regret protesting against Zayn's physical pushing him into the shower back home.

“Okay, so a... single room? With a queen bed? At the Radisson Blu.”

Louis nodded blissfully. She seemed quite perplexed at his alone-ness and unprepared-ness, but he disregarded that for the light at the end of the tunnel, the bed at the end of the journey.

“Alright... And how long will your stay be?”

“Uh,” Louis paused. Truthfully, he had been trying to push away thoughts of leaving here and returning as far away as possible. He didn't know how long, but he knew it was a lot longer than like, two weeks, so he had been planning on actually just renting a cabin or something. But for the hotel... “Um. Three? Days?”

“Okay...” she bit her lip. “Credit card and I.D., please?” Louis slid it across the counter. In a moment, she examined his English driver's license and swiped the card, and Louis realized that she didn't even tell him the price of the room. “You're all set, Mr. Tomlinson. Do you need a taxi as well?” He nodded eagerly. She dialed on the land line and it answered almost instantly, immediately throwing her into a conversation that was definitely Russian. They hung up before Louis could process what was happening. “All set for that, too. A taxi is waiting outside to take you to the Radisson Blu. Enjoy your stay, and watch out for polar bears.” Her eyes twinkled at the last phrase, and something told Louis that she said that to all her customers in an attempt to rise a reaction out of them.

“Thank you,” he said, giving her a smile for all her help. Honestly, where would Louis be without this  _Kundeservice_ lady? Freezing in the snow drifts, that's where.

It was dark outside by the time the taxi pulled up to the Radisson, a large, golden building that seemed out of place in the meager town of Longyearbyen. Louis bid the driver goodbye and hauled his bags inside, checked in, and lugged everything down a back hallway to Room 108. He didn't take the time to soak in his surroundings. The room was plain at best, and that's all Louis thought before he toed off his shoes and burrowed under the comforter in all his clothes, plunging into the darkness of sleep.

 

 

When Louis next blinked awake, it was to the Arctic sun shining directly into his eyes.

“Fuck,” he groaned, stretching under the heavy sheets wrapped around him. Blearily rubbing his eyes, he ignored the cries of protest from his body in an attempt to sit up, peering into the sun. Grabbing around for his phone, he found it deep under the mountain of pillows at the head of the bed. The screen came to life, the background of a picture Dan took a few months ago of him and girls all piled onto their mum's bed; it took a minute or two for the blurry symbols to come into focus.

_5:45 pm_

_“Fuck.”_  He must have gotten to the hotel around one am last night, or whatever, he hadn't a clue. Either way, it's been over half a day, and he was goddamn  _starving._

First task: find food.

Wait. Louis unzipped his coat and dumped it on the bed to reveal the disaster of a shirt, now stiff and wrinkling against his body. One sniff of his armpits, and – first task: shower.

He threw closed the blackout curtains on the way to the bathroom, ripping off his clothes as he goes, and craned the hot water as far as it could go. The water was welcoming, the dirt falling off in rivets and cleansing his soul, almost. Well, that's a bit of a stretch, but the feeling was so incredible that Louis didn't even cry under the water, so that was a definite plus.

Once out, he threw on a clean outfit and his thick jacket again, and huddled out the door in search of food. Food, glorious food, please, let there be a full English breakfast in the lobby. If he prayed hard enough, he thought, it might appear on the lobby desk.

The lobby proved clean of any morsels of the elusive English breakfast, and though it did ignite a small sigh of disappointment, Louis figured he never was particularly religious anyway. He missed when his mum would have a good day, and he'd stumble downstairs to find her frying up some sausage in the kitchen, clutching her walking stick while she stuck the spatula around the pan.

Wandering around the vast lobby area, he spotted a wide doorway to the side, the sign  _Barentz Pub and Spiseri_ swinging above it. Perfect. If it's anything like back home, the pub will have at least one mouthwatering thing to eat.

Past the entrance to the pub, a stuffed polar bear stood tall, paws raised and mouth open mid roar. Louis paused, staring at its wide mouth and sharp teeth. If he reached out, his hand would still be engulfed in the massive paw, and his mind, he pictured the bear engulfing his entire being, swallowing him whole. He would  _become_ the bear.

Christ, he needed some sustenance.

Before he could walk into the pub, though, he spotted a familiar desk in the corner of the lobby, the word  _Kundeservice_ emblazoned below the glazed wooden top. Louis swiveled on the balls of his new boots and strutted over, eying the bored employee leaning against the wall behind him.

“Excuse me,” Louis said, and the man jumped off the wall in surprise, almost dropping his phone.

“Sorry,” the blonde rushed to apologize, blushing. Cute, kind of. His Norwegian accent was definitely cuter than his face. “How can I help you?”

“Bit of an odd question,” Louis began, fiddling with the zipper of his jacket. “But where's the real estate office around here?”

The guy blanked. “Uh, real estate office?”

“Yes?”

“We don't have that here. Sorry, sir.”

“Oh.” Shit, that's a hitch in the plans. If there was no way to get even cabin here -

“We do not have a real estate office, but there is a man who is a real estate expert. He works at the pub in town during the day, but I'm sure if he has a free lunch break he can help you.”

“That would be wonderful,” Louis sighed in relief. Back on track, okay.

“Call him today,” the guy said, scribbling down a number on a sticky note, “and see what he can do for you. His name is Niall, by the way.”

“Thank you,” Louis said, accepting the sticky note and stuffing it in the jacket pocket.

“You are very welcome,” he replied, brandishing a dashing smile. Louis stood awkwardly for a moment, not sure how to respond, until he just tipped a sort of salute thing and shuffled away, escaping into the pub. He exhausted onto one of the seats at the bar and rubbed his face, the edges of the note scratching at the skin.

A woman approached him, holding out a menu. He gave her a small thank you before diving back into his shell, the open menu in front of him. Louis didn't have to look at it to know what he wanted, thought; all he needed right now was three servings of fries and a beer. If they had good beer in Svalbard.

Unwrapping the sticky note, he stared at the numbers scrawled down. He worried over whether he'd call this Niall during something important, or if a pub in this town really  _was_ that busy (the answer: no. The one he was in right now, which didn't even look like an actual pub, served only one other patron). Wiggling his phone out of the tiny pocket, Louis unlocked it and dialed before he could second chance the decision. Besides, he'd have to do this sometime, right? Might as well be now.

The tone only rung twice before the other line crackled awake.

“Hello!” a cheery voice answered. “Who is this?”

“Uh, this is Louis Tomlinson,” Louis stuttered, surprised by the thick Irish lilt to this Niall's voice. That's probably the only Irish guy on this island. “The guy at Customer Service at the Radisson told me you were the man to go to for real estate?”

“Right he is!” Niall said. “What do you need, Louis Tomlinson?”

“I was wondering if I could rent a home, like a cabin, here? In Longyearbyen?”

“It'll be tough, I'll tell ya that. There's not much market here, as you can see. But I'm sure I can hook you up with something nice.”

“That'd be cool,” Louis said, nodding until he realized that Niall couldn't see him.

“You said you were at the Radisson?”

“Yeah.”

“I have lunch break for two hours beginning 11:30 tomorrow morning, do you wanna meet me out front and I can show you some houses?”

“Sounds amazing,” Louis agreed readily.

“Awesome! I'll meet you then, Tomlinson. I'll be the blonde in a bright pink coat.”

“And I'll be dark green, like everyone else I've seen here so far.”

A high, unabashed cackle hit his ear. “No one here has a sense of fashion, I tell ya. No matter, they're all great people. See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Louis let himself giggle, “see you tomorrow, Niall...”

“Horan. Niall Horan. Bye, Tomlinson!”

“Bye.”

The call died right as the woman from earlier reached him, a notepad in hand.

“What would you like to eat?”

“Some, um, three fries, and a glass of the best beer you have,” he said, watching her raised expression as she copied everything down.

“It'll be right out,” she promised, flashed him a smile, and traipsed down the bar to a newcomer who just sat down with frost thawing in his beard.

The small hill of food was brought out fifteen minutes later, and Louis downed three beers before calling the day quits and lugging back upstairs. At least this time, he had the self decency to shrug out of all his clothes and snuggle into some thick pyjamas before settling down for another round of being-dead-to-the-world.

Before he could be whisked away, the black out curtains facing the left side of the bed caught his eye. Practically crawling towards them, he cracked the curtains open, revealing a stream of dust motes in the setting sun.

Behind the hotel, an enormous valley lay open, sloping high above the town. The snow covered plateaus stood tall, guarding Longyearbyen from any harm that might try to come its way. It was a nice thought, these aging, stubborn soldiers, protecting the town. Like nothing could ever overcome their white flanks, not even the blood red streaks of the sunset.

Louis shuddered and slowly closed the heavy curtains, rolling back to bed and into the off white sheets of the hotel bed.

 

 

“Louis?”

The murmur was distant, not entirely registering to Louis, currently shimmying into a forest green winter jacket.

“Tomlinson? Louis Tomlinson?”

Wait, what? Louis glanced around, mouth still muffled by fur trim hair and arms in robot dance position as he searched for the culprit of what sounded like his name.

Oh,  _oh._ His phone, right. He must have sat on his and pressed the answer button when the problem at hand led him to topple over. Quickly, Louis pushed his arms through the rest of the sleeves and gasped for air.

“Louis-”

“Yes, hello, sorry,” Louis breathed, tugging the jacket down as he spoke. “Are you out front?”

“I am, yeah, I got here ten minutes ago.”

“Shit, sorry, I got up late and then things happened and, anyway, I'll be down in two seconds. Fuck, sorry.”

“No problem,” Niall laughed. “I'll be waiting.”

It took Louis another two minutes to scrabble for his key card and boots and thump down the hallway. Niall was in leaning against the glass display surrounding the stuffed polar bear, his Pepto Bismol pink jacket nauseating next to the sleek white of the animal and walls behind him.

“You must be Louis,” he greeted as Louis drew closer. The Irish man flashed the biggest smile Louis had seen so far in Svalbard and thrust out a thickly gloved hand for him to shake.

“Yeah. Louis Tomlinson. It's nice to meet you.”

“Right back at ya. Listen, my lunch break at the bar is over in a little under an hour, so let's hit the road, yeah? I've got three houses I can show you.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Louis nodded eagerly. The pair strolled into the biting cold, and Niall led the way to a large black truck on the outer edge of the parking lot. A massive  _Northernmost Radisson Blu Hotel_ flag whipped around in the wind, fighting against the overcast grey skies.

“The first one is a little far out,” Niall prattled as he steered the truck out of the parking lot. “Not too far that you don't have basic amenities like running water and all, but definitely closer to the sea than most of the houses here in Longyearbyen.”

Louis breathed in deep. “I like the sea.” Niall grinned.

It took a little longer than expected to arrive at the cabin, Niall maneuvering the vehicle to circumvent a snow drift in the middle of the barely visible road.

“Like I said, a little far out. You'll definitely need a rifle here, which shouldn't be too much of a problem.”

“A rifle?”

Niall cocked an eyebrow. “Course. I mean, if any polar bears are spotted out here, you're out of luck, mate. Better to get that license and rifle now before you get mauled to death by your company.”

Nodding vaguely, Louis turned in his seat to catch sight of the cabin. The air was blissfully empty of swirling snow today, and the little hut was clear against the storming sea behind it. It was small, a one room thing with slats of wood plastered all around the outside. A covered bin stood next to the front door for firewood, although the chimney seemed to be smothered in freshly laden snow.

“It's one room, very well insulated, and has a wood burning fire stove. There's only a twin bed inside, but since you're alone, I'm sure you can manage. This one is lucky, too, by the way. It's one of the only cabins nearer to the sea with a working toilet instead of an outhouse, which means you don't have to bring your rifle to the loo in a snowstorm in December. I'll tell you right now, that's what a nightmare feels like in real life. The last owner had a snowmobile, too, so there's a little space for it beside the house, and -”

“I like it.” Louis reached for the latch of the car door and swung it open, the wind catching onto it, ripping it from his hands.

“Alright, well, do you want to see inside?” Louis could feel Niall's uncertainty from the snow drift.

“Definitely.”

The blonde climbed out of the car and trudged to the cabin door, his gloved hands not taking well to the jumble of keys produced from his pocket. It took a minute of chattering teeth before he unlocked the wooden door, a small cry of triumph erupting from behind the brim of his thick pink coat.

“It's not much,” Niall warned as Louis shouldered past him. He was right; the cabin didn't boast more than a sink, a college dorm sized refrigerator, and a cabinet with no doors on one side, a ragged couch with a lopsided coffee table in the other, and one twin bed squeezed into the corner.

“It's perfect,” Louis sighed as he watched the white he trekked in melt over the dusty, creaking pine floors.

“Really?”

“I'll take it.”

Niall's eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Well, I didn't expect you to be the type of guy to rent a cabin in the middle of nowhere in the Arctic Circle.”

“Trust me, I'm not. But I like it.”

“Alrighty, then,” the blonde shrugged. “If you're sure -”

“Positive.”

“- then I'll take you back to the bar and we'll fill out the forms in my office. Will you be working here and paying with wages?”

“Um, I sort of ran into some money, so no, I won't be.”

If Niall was suspicious, he didn't prod. For that, Louis was eternally grateful, and would gladly drop to his knees to kiss the man's toes. God knows he's run into some nosy people in the past.

Reopening the squealing door, Niall gestured for Louis to exit the cabin first.

On the trudge back to the truck, Louis caught sight of another cabin, similar in style to this one, tucked between the white hills a few hundred yards away.

“What's that cabin?” Louis queried, pointing towards it.

“That one? Oh, it's just a student at UNIS. He's away on trips a lot of the time, so if it's solitude you're looking for with this cabin, don't worry, he won't bother you.”

Louis didn't answer, only giving a small nod. He kept his eyes on the cabin as he shut himself in the cabin of the truck.

“He's not an axe murderer, if you're wondering,” Niall commented when he slid in beside Louis. He wasn't wondering, but the thought made Louis chuckle. “Longyearbyen's got one of the lowest crime rates you'll ever see this side of the Arctic Circle.”

This time, Louis really laughed. “Thanks, that's really reassuring.”

Niall cackled and grinned wickedly. “Not a problem, mate.”

 

 

However insulated the tiny cabin was, a deep, bone chilling Svalbard cold still managed to seep under the door and through the windows, sighing through Louis' skin and demanding his full attention. It permeated his skull, his teeth, the bitten nails of his semi-constantly shivering hands. Sometimes, in the early hours of the morning, he cracked his eyes open to watch the little huffs of breath catch in the moonlight cascading in through the window above the twin bed.

That, combined with being alone and heartbroken, was a cocktail for weak bones.

In the week and a half since he signed the lease in Niall's closet of a real estate office wedged in the back of  _Huset_ , the only actual bar in all of Svalbard, Louis had gone out for groceries once, had held the biting doorknob a second time in consideration, and spent the rest of the time under a mountain of ten different quilts piled onto the twin bed. Plus a thermal blanket. The cabin had shaped up quite nicely in his time here; two mugs and a teacup stood in the cabinet, along with a pile of mismatching silverware and three chipped ceramic plates; Louis' traveling bags lay unzipped and discarded against the threadbare couch; Louis himself was an object in the scenery, unmoving beneath his pile of blankets. A laptop perched perilously on the edge of coffee table, his phone lived somewhere between blanket one and blanket five, and the front door remained firmly locked to any outsiders wanting to barge in. Or polar bears. Louis shivered; he still hadn't and didn't plan on attending any gun classes in the near future. The only true sign of life for anyone peering into the dilapidated cabin by the sea was the old lamp that swung in the kitchen. It was nice, sometimes, in the dark, to hold onto the dim yellow light flooding the small alcove of a kitchen.

On this particular night, Louis felt boneless. There was no other way to describe it. He stared at the wooden ceiling above him, imagining it swaying under the weight of the snow until it toppled down onto him, crushing his chest until the hurt in his heart matched the rest of him. Maybe it would be a few days until anyone found him, maybe no one would tell Lottie, or the others, and he could slip away as quietly as he had ever wanted. He also felt pathetic, but there was no physical need or mental capability to drag himself from bed, so that's just what he would be.

Louis' gaze shifted to the old, blue laptop he'd left on the table. On the second night, there had been a sudden urge to take it out and check his e-mail, but as soon as he lifted it from the suitcase, the need was gone, and he had left it there to return to the comfort of the twin. It kind of hurt, looking at it. He knew there would be a couple of messages from Zayn, at least one, just to check up on how he was doing. It was a pity, because anything the lad ever did was just a little too late. Oh well, sucks for him.

Sleep pulled at his eyelids, the thick sludge of it tugging at his skin, and Louis closed his eyes a millisecond at a time. The laptop blurred before blinking out of view, replaced by only the deep black of a promising night's slumber. He'd been up since four am feeling sorry for himself, and right now, all he needed was his collection of granny's knits and a sunlit backyard.

Between sighing breaths, a muffled sound crept into Louis' eardrums. It was indistinct, just a shuffling around the cabin, and for a moment, Louis chalked it up to a bird hopping through the snow, but –  _but._ Arctic birds didn't sound like a lumberjack when they tried to trek through drifts.

Louis' eyes shot open. There it was again, the same sound, but closer, like this thing shuffled right past the window above his bed. It seemed heavy, and he strained to hear a form of irregular breathing. Oh, shit, a  _polar bear._

Okay, now,  _now,_ Louis desperately wished he had a rifle within arm's research. He wished he had ever touched a gun before, had taken those damn classes, fuck, there was a polar bear outside and Louis couldn't breathe, he couldn't stop his hammering heart where it rattled his ribs.

The lumbering rounded the cabin, inching closer and closer to the flimsy wooden door, and Louis tried to surreptitiously worm his way under his small hill of quilts taken from the thrift store in town. Maybe, if the polar bear barged in, he would only think there was a nasty old lady underneath the pile and think itself too aloof to eat her.

Something banged against the door. Louis felt like crying. Muffled noises trailed through, and then the doorknob jiggled. Shit, this was the end, goodbye to Louis, Lottie will have fun reading a speech to the funeral procession in his wake. Covering his ears under the blanket, he squeezed his eyes shut and willed the Grim Reaper to be swift and courteous.

In a flurry of white dust, the cabin door flung open and the polar bear tumbled in, hissing expletives and –  _hissing expletives?_

Louis stilled. Oh great, now he was being robbed, thanks Niall, thank the Irish for Louis' luck at being robbed in the Arctic Circle, not the shit neighborhood he lived in back in England -

“Hello?”

His heart thudded to a stop. The voice was soft, deep, and anything but intimidating. If this was a thief, it was a shit one at that.

“Is anyone here? I saw the light on, thought someone had moved in?” Louis could hear the intruder step further into the cabin, clearly taking in the recently lived in surroundings. He heard a defeated sigh, the crunch of fresh snow between a boot and the wooden floors, and no, Louis couldn't let this proper sad robber get away without... he didn't know.

With a flourish, Louis threw the covers off and hopped out of the bed, arms up in defense.

“Who the hell are you?” he bit out, and this bulky, quite frankly polar bear sized man spun around so clumsily his snow boot caught the edge of the door and slammed it shut.

“Where the hell-” the man-boy-person cut himself off when his gaze flicked from Louis' pyjamas and the sheets on the floor and – was that an amused glint in his eye? “You were hiding.”

Vacuum sealed from the world, Louis took the chance to eye the intruder, whose green eyes stared Louis down just the same. It was safe to say that he had never seen anything quite like him. In one hand, he clutched a rifle, and in the other, a saran-wrapped casserole, tucked into his thick winter jacket. His face was mostly hidden by a snow bitten fur collar, and the guy's nose and cheeks gleamed with frost, but from what was visible, his eyes were impossibly, stutteringly green, and a dimple caught in the bleak light of the lamp.

“Who the hell are you,” Louis repeated, cautiously eying the rifle.

“I could ask the same of you,” Polar Bear Man replied, his lips quirking up in a smile. Louis' frown deepened.

“I asked first, and you're in my kitchen.”

“Fair enough,” he shrugged, slinging the rifle over his shoulder and reaching up to tug down the hood of his jacket. Curls sprung forth, long and corkscrew, something Louis definitely hadn't expected. “I'm Harry, and I live next door. And you?”

“Louis,” was all he could muster.

The intruder – Harry – nodded and smiled, as if Louis' curt response had no effect on him. Maybe it didn't; Louis was, after all, in pyjamas.

“I probably should have come at a better time-”

“Yes.”

“- but I just got home yesterday from an expedition, and I got into a cooking kick, so I thought I might make the newcomer a casserole.”

“A casserole,” Louis said blankly. He tried to keep up an air of indifference, but his weeping stomach begged to differ. He had run out of food two days ago.

“Yes, a casserole,” Harry repeated. “A house warming gift.” He looked like he expected a sort of a thank you in exchange for breaking and entering to give someone he didn't know at all a damn casserole.

“You broke into my cabin.”

“Well, usually people don't leave their homes locked here. We're very trusting, and I thought, like, if you're door is locked, maybe you were in danger.”

Louis scoffed.  _Trust_ , that was something he wasn't really experienced in. This complete stranger had waltzed on in despite a locked door to fancy himself a savior to someone he didn't know, whether by casserole or a helicopter lift to the hospital. Who the hell was this kid?

A fat drop of melted snow rolled down from Harry's nose, lining his cupid's bow before catching at the rim of his bottom lip. His eyebrows furrowed deeper the longer Louis kept the silence, becoming unsure, like maybe, just maybe, breaking in wasn't the right thing to do in such a situation.

Two seconds away from a genuine pout, Louis' resolve broke. “You can set the casserole on the counter.” Immediately, this kid's shoulders sagged and he flashed a grin before plopping the dish down next to an old yogurt cup.

“So, hello, Louis,” Harry said brightly as he turned back around, holding out a gloved hand for Louis to shake. He didn't take it. “What brings you to Svalbard?”

Louis blanched. That was something – something. He just - “What brings you?”

If Harry caught onto his question deflecting, which he most certainly did, he didn't acknowledge it. “I'm a student at UNIS, actually. Biology. And I love the snow.” There was that slightly devilish-even-though-it-had-no-reason-to-be smile.

“Animals. And snow.”

“And plants. Well, yeah, mostly animals.”

Louis didn't know what to say. He was so, so open. It was offsetting. It wasn't even that he was sharing classified information, but the way he so readily answered questions from a complete stranger, it was weird, and Louis kind of wanted him out of here. Instead.

“You're English,” he said stupidly. Harry looked amused.

“Yes, and so are you. If I'm not mistaken, Yorkshire, right?”

Louis nodded slowly. “Right.”

“I'm from Cheshire, myself. That's not that far, is it?”

“No, it isn't.”

If Louis had a clock, it would be ticking menacingly in the background. The seconds slipped slowly, just the two of them staring at each other.

“What's with the rifle?”

“Huh?” For a moment, he was confused, until he realized that yes, there was very much still a deadly weapon on his shoulder. “Oh! Well, don't you have one? It's required by law that everyone have a rifle in and around town. And our cabins are around town. You know, polar bears, all that jazz.”

Louis gulped. So he'd been narrowly avoiding the law, okay, that was unsettling information.

Cocking an eyebrow, Harry toyed at the wooden part at the bottom. Christ, Louis had never had any time to play those Call of Duty video games. He barely knew what a gun looked like, much less how to use it, or, like, have one casually strapped to his back while taking a stroll through the land.

“You haven't got a gun, have you?” Curly inquired, leaning forward by just a micrometer.

“No, I haven't,” Louis replied honestly.

Whatever he was expecting, it wasn't Harry gasping and clapping his hands in delight.

“I'm taking you to get your license,” he practically squealed. A grown man, squealing, Louis didn't even think that was possible.

“What?” Louis stared on incredulously. “I don't even know your last name; you're not taking me to accidentally get shot in the face.”

“Styles, it's Harry Styles. And unless you're facing the gun the wrong way, that's quite impossible.” Louis spluttered, but before he could get anything in, Harry drove on. “Tomorrow at nine, I'll take you. Svalbard needs you to be protected.”

“I'm not – you're not-”

Harry shushed him with a stern hand. “Tomorrow, nine am, the shooting range. Be there or be square.”

With a sense of finality, Curly turned on his heel and wrenched open the door, letting in a gust of bitter cold air. Before shutting it behind him, he peeked back in.

“It just occurred to me that you probably don't know where the shooting range is. So I'll just meet you here and walk you over. Also, enjoy your casserole, I only make the best.” He waggled his eyebrows, for whatever reason, and shut the door, leaving in a flurry, just like he'd arrived.

For five minutes, Louis was frozen to the floor, mouth agape. What the hell had just  _happened?_

Huffing a breath, he ran a hand through his hair and looked around in mild bewilderment for his bed. First, a polar bear, then a thief, and how he's being taken against his will to a shooting range to get his license and, Jesus, probably buy his own fucking gun. What the hell?

Collapsing back onto the bed, he was no longer as cold as before, mind swimming with thoughts of the whirlwind that just slammed through the cabin.

In the darkness, with the light now off, Louis tried to order his thoughts.

“Harry,” he whispered, letting the name roll off his tongue. “Harry Styles.” What a pop star name, really. A Harry Styles wasn't a biology major in the world's most inhabited ice cube, he was a jet setter, at the top of the charts with a few mouth watering diamonds to the name.

Harry Styles. His peace had just been completely, unapologetically interrupted by a certain Harry Styles, who he didn't know one bit, and was now taking him to shoot guns. Life was fucking weird.

 

 

The shooting range, if you were wondering, was exactly the same temperature inside as it was outside. Snow bit at the stubble dusting Louis' chin as he trembled on the doorstep, watching Harry jiggle the doorknob. The door flung open, Harry pulled him inside, and – nothing. Still shivering, still huffing out puffs of breath, and still freezing his tits off. The giant before him appeared fine, smiling through chapped lips and a fiery glint in his eye as he led Louis through the main entrance of the small shooting range tucked into the side of a hill and to the source of the bitterness permeating the inside. To the left was a locked storage door, presumably full of rifles, and to the right was a massive room with ten large openings in the wall, facing the side of the mountain the hill jutted out of. White snow swirled around outside, blowing drifts into the building. On the last opening, a woman laid down before it, a rifle snug in her arms as she aimed into the white. A man clad in about fifty jackets stood stoically behind her, squinting at the range.

“Nils!” Harry called, waving to the puffy cheeked man.

“Harry,” the guy greeted, grinning warmly. He sauntered over and stuck out a gloved hand, which Harry shook firmly. “I thought you already took your rifle course in January?”

“Yeah, I took it with the safety course at UNIS, but my friend Louis here is new to Svalbard and has never touched a rifle before.” He gestured to Louis standing behind him, arms crossed and nose wrinkled.

“Hi,” he said shortly, nodding at Nils. The Norwegian guy looked slightly amused, but nodded back amicably.

“Hello, Louis,” he began. “Here to learn how to survive a zombie apocalypse?”

“Um.”

“I kid, I kid,” he laughed, a guttural boom. “I assume you have to get experience for polar bear protection?”

“Yeah,” Louis said, not sure what else to say, what to do in this foreign space. Lottie would shriek with laughter if she saw him standing so awkwardly here, between a weirdo and a Norwegian man both toting intimidating rifles on their shoulders.

“Alright, let's get you set up, then,” Nils said, shuffling over to the locked room. “I'll just give you a rifle and a pair of safety muffs for your ears, and we'll start.”

Louis glanced at Harry hesitantly as the man rooted through the room, and he wiggled his eyebrows back and flashed a ear-to-ear grin.

Nils emerged from the depths with two rifles and two earmuffs. “We'll be over here,” he said, leading the pair to the middle hole. The snow whirls outside had quieted down mildly, settling into a soft sifting which let the mountain loom clear before them. In the distance, Louis noticed a large drawing of a bear staked into the snow drifts.

“So, first time?” Nils asked.

“Yeah,” Louis affirmed nervously. He should have researched more before hopping onto a plane to the middle of the Arctic nowhere, Jesus. Guns and purposeful violence were not his thing, especially being a man of language.

As Nils handed over one of the rifles, Harry plopped down before the opening next to them, his own rifle in his hands.

The wood and metal instrument felt heavy in Louis' hands, sparks of apprehension racing from his fingers up his arms.

Nils grabbed at the thick wooden part at the end. “This is the stock, it keeps the whole thing together; and this-” he pointed underneath “- is the trigger. You know what that does.” He went on to name the other parts of the weapon, ticking off the bolt, magazine, trigger guard, et cetera et cetera. Louis almost had trouble keeping track of them all, but if he didn't want to kill himself, then yeah, he figured he had to make room in his messed up brain somewhere.

“Okay,” Nils said after a while, startling Louis out of his rifle-induced haze. “Have you got all that?”

“I think so.”

“Then we'll learn how to shoot. This is the best part.” From behind him, Harry laughed as he toyed with the stock of his rifle.

Nils turned to the gaping hole in the wall before them, opened out into the mountain. By now, the snowfall had died altogether, leaving only the wide space between the building and the cartoon polar bears hidden in the drifts.

“The first thing is to load the magazine. Each of ours are currently unloaded, and if you-” he paused, jerking back the bolt “- you'll be able to see it's empty. And if you push the bolt handle back in, if the magazine weren't empty it would load a bullet into the chamber ready to fire. I'll show you on mine how to load and unload...” The man produced two bullets and, pulling the bolt handle back again, popped one into the magazine. He explained the loading and unloading in great detail, making sure to cover such a plethora of precautions and mishaps that Louis' brain wheezed with the effort to keep up. Finally, he loaded the bullet into the chamber and lifted the rifle to his shoulder. “Like this. And then you look through the scope at your target, pull the trigger, and fire.”

Louis gritted his teeth as a single bullet was pressed into the palm of his hand. He tested out the bolt handle a few times before loading the bullet. The thought of a loaded weapon fizzled in his mind, and the nervousness must have showed, because Harry caught his eye and shot a thumbs up, the glint still in his eyes. Heaving out a breath, Louis turned the rifle over in his hands and just stared, a tiny bit bewildered.

“What you're going to do,” Neil said as he crouched on the floor, “is lay on the ground so that the rifle is balanced. Like so.” Nils laid flat on his stomach, nestling the rifle against his shoulder and pointing the muzzle towards the mountain. Louis copied his motions, ignoring the cold that seeped through his jacket from the snow. “And... just like I just taught you. Ready, aim, fire.”

“Right.” Before eying the scope, he looked quickly at Harry, who still stared intently at Louis, like he had been this entire time. Kind of disarming, a bit creepy, but Louis had a fake polar bear to shoot. “ _Right._ ” Louis settled his hands on the rifle, peered through the scope, and waited until the polar bear focused. From the scope, he aimed at the center of fake bear, squeezed the trigger, and -

A loud  _bang_ ran through the air, thankfully muffled by the earmuffs but still loud enough to pierce Louis' heart. It rang out, echoing into the Svalbard mountains, and Louis waited a few moments before removing one muff and looking expectantly at Nils.

“Good?” Louis asked.

“Good,” Nils assured, giving a smile. Harry grinned too, still this sort of excited. “So, I'll give you five rounds, and you can just practice for a moment? Harry, you too?”

“That would be lovely,” he nodded, and Nils reached inside the bullet box and distributed five to each of them.

Harry cocked an eyebrow as he loaded his rifle. “Fun?”

“Fucking strange.”

A laugh bubbled out of Harry, the curls that fell from under his beanie shaking slightly. “I didn't like it at first, either. But it's just for protection, and I haven't used it in a real life situation ever, so I've come to terms.”

“That's true.” Louis pulled back the bolt and filled the magazine, shuffling back onto the floor. He replaced the muff, stared hard at the thick black lines of the polar bear, and pressed the trigger right as Harry did. Louis fired again before sitting up, letting his mind rest before he went on.

“So, Harry,” he started when Harry sat back up with him. “How long have you been here?”

“I think about like, one and a half years,” he said, shoulders shrugging.

“Thought you were only here for school?”

“Yeah, I do go to the university here, but I stayed over the summer and just decided to do my third year here, too.”

Louis nodded and resumed the shooting position, firing once and pulling the muff back.

“Third year?”

“I'm on exchange from the University of Oslo,” Harry said. “I study biology, and I've always been into extreme condition survival. So when the offer came up, you know.”

University of  _Oslo_ , okay, so this was a rich kid Louis was dealing with here. One who had  _opportunities, passions,_ and probably a  _memory foam mattress._ And  _money_ to  _fuel those dreams._ None of which had ever flickered in the distance of Louis' life landscape. For a moment, Louis felt too bitter to answer, just huffed and covered his ears. One good thing about rifles is that they block out all other obligations to life.

When Louis pulled the muff back again, Harry had emptied out all his bullets and collected the empty casings, rolling them between his fingers.

“What about you?” he asked, one eyebrow quirked, like it always annoyingly seemed to be doing.

“Left at sixteen.”

“Oh,” was all the kid said, scratching at the gold casings.

“I've always wanted to go into journalism, though,” he added, more of a whisper than anything. He thought of the last bullet in his gun, of the pierced cartoon bear embedded in white. He thought of the look on his mother's face when he told her he wasn't going to sixth form. Before Harry could reply, Louis shoved the muff back over his ears and pulled the trigger again.

Nils had waltzed over sometime between the bullet whistling out of the muzzle of the rifle and Louis sitting back up.

“Five more?” he queried, holding out a box of bullets. Harry seemed a little hesitant, but Louis reached right out and grabbed them greedily. He didn't say a word as he loaded them into the magazine, focused on the face. Her tired, beautiful face, those sad eyes. Shuffling back onto the ground, Louis barely lined up with the scope before yanking the trigger.

This is for her.

_Boom._

This is for the light that left her eyes.

_Boom._

This is for lost chances.

_Boom._

This is for that damn eyebrow raise, who the fuck does Harry think he is? Queen of this conversation?

Harry had barely shot two when Louis released himself from his position, resting criss-cross applesauce with the rifle across his lap. In the midst of his sudden burst of emotions, Curly looked quite cute, one eye closed and his lip between his teeth as he focused on his shots. If Louis weren't so emotionally impaired, he might actually think him  _attractive_ , but clearly that wasn't about to happen. Besides, it's not like he'd see him much after this. Even though the company was nice, Louis had come here to be alone, and he wasn't about to break that promise to himself. Alone is what he needed; he wasn't about to let Dimples here drag him away from that.

“So,” Harry broke the silence, picking up all ten of the dropped casings. “I was wondering if you wanted to go out again after this?”

Louis spluttered, fingers tensing on the rifle.

“I mean,” he amended, “I bought my first snowmobile the other day, and I've yet to take it out for its first spin. You don't have to, of course, but it'd be cool if you came along. It's a two seater thing.”

Louis stared hard at him, at this giant weirdo who looked at Louis expectantly through his eyelashes like he wasn't practically a foot taller than him.

“Like, tomorrow?”

“Or whenever, really,” he said hurriedly, biting his lip.

“I- yeah. Sure.”

“Really?” Harry seemed mildly surprised, as if he hadn't actually expected someone like Louis to agree to a friendly outing on a possibly dangerous snowmobile.

“I mean, yeah,” he shrugged, glancing down at the rifle.

Finally, a grin broke out, stretching from dimple to dimple. Louis kind of regretted saying yes. He opened his mouth to respond, but heavy boots wandered over again and a heavy hand clapped Louis on the back.

“All done?” Nils asked, smiling warmly at his two patrons.

“Yeah,” Harry said, climbing onto his feet. He held a hand out for Louis and hauled him up, still with that stupid grin on his face. Louis felt sarcastically cross just looking at it.

“So, Louis,” Nils began as he rounded the counter. “I suppose you're renting a gun, then. Do you know how many months?”

“No idea,” he replied, ignoring Harry to face the Norwegian man.

“Okay, I'll just put you down for... three months...”

Honestly, Louis had no idea if he would be able to last that long in this cold, but it seemed like a good estimate and, frankly, he was too everything and nothing at all to truly care.

They spent the next five minutes getting the gun ready, signing paperwork, buying a few bullets, etc. Not in his entire life did Louis ever envision himself renting a gun, but here he was. Renting a gun in the Arctic Circle, with a giant by his side and a tentative invitation between them.

As they exited the shooting range into the same biting cold, Harry bumped shoulders with him, probably in a friendly gesture lost on Louis.

“What time should I pick you up tomorrow?” he asked, as if this was a proper date being set up in an American high school, and Harry would pick him up in his truck with a bouquet of flowers. Louis snorted.

“What time do I wake up?” he pondered, walking further ahead and pulling his beanie down farther.

“Eight, then.”

“No, way too early, eight is atrocious,” Louis huffed, crossing his arms.

Harry just laughed as he jogged to catch up. “Well, as I get up at six every day on my own, I would say eight is a fair time.”

“Fine, but if you walk in and I'm still dead to the world, don't be surprised.”

“Thanks for the warning, then,” he giggled. “I'll bring some breakfast with; I make a mean full English.”

Louis perked up at the sound of that. “Would you, really?”

“Back in England, definitely. I can't afford to make that in Svalbard, though, so you're just going to have to settle with the best bowl of cereal you've ever had.”

“Right,” Louis scoffed, turning to hide the somewhat... fond eye roll that threatened to overtake his entire face. “We'll see.”

When he faced forward again, he caught Harry's eyes flitting towards him, something like excitement held in them. Alright, then, this better be the best breakfast bowl he's ever had, or else he will never grace this Harry kid with his presence ever again. Louis Tomlinson doesn't just spend time with anyone.

 

 

When Harry knocked on the door at eight o'clock sharp the next morning, it wasn't with a bowl of cereal, but instead a plate piled with bacon, still lukewarm after the trek over.

“You need to do groceries,” Harry commented as he peered at the aching cabinets and vast counters. The casserole had been delicious, obviously, since the only washed dish in the entire meager kitchen was the bowl it was held in. But other than that, the kitchen still stood like a beggar at the edge of the highway.

Louis just made a noncommittal noise as he pulled two blankets over his shoulder. Contrary to what Harry was probably thinking, Louis had been awake in time for his arrival. In fact, he hadn't even gone to sleep, as the education conversation from the day before had inadvertently ripped an entire new hole in his heart and he hadn't been able to catch a wink as he rode out the wave. But as the morning came and stretched on, he hadn't found the will to roll out of bed and change into something more snowmobile appropriate.

Even as he looked at Harry, eyes blinking sleepily and proudly holding out the plate of bacon, he felt a flare of jealousy rise unwarranted in his stomach. Still, Louis attempted weakly to tamp it down and shoved some bacon into his mouth to shut himself up before he said something stupid.

“Oh my god,” he almost moaned, eyes falling closed because holy  _shit_ this bacon was good. Freshly cooked meat for the first time in a week and by god, did it taste like God descended from the heavens himself and blessed Harry's cooking with the tears of his closest angel. “This is glorious.”

Harry coughed inwardly as he tugged his beanie off. “Thank you?”

“No, thank  _you_.”

“You're welcome,” Harry hummed, and though Louis' eyes were closed, he could hear the smile in his voice.

Louis took the plate and plopped down on the threadbare couch, gesturing for Harry to do the same. The guy kicked off his boots, shrugged off one of his layers, and took Louis' lead, nestling into the other side of the couch.

“So, I have some bad news to break,” Harry said, fiddling with the rings on his fingers. “The snowmobile is broken.”

“What?” Louis gasped, faking aghast. Harry grinned at that, shoving at Louis' feet with his own in retaliation.

“I tried to start it up this morning, but the engine flat out wouldn't do anything. So I'm taking it into town after classes tomorrow morning and seeing what's wrong. But for today...”

“You have absolutely nothing to keep me entertained except this plate of bacon.”

“To be fair, you do seem to be quite enjoying the bacon.”

“I didn't want to tell you this, but I was just complimenting it to be nice,” Louis mock confessed before eating another piece. Actually, it was the opposite, and for a moment there it truly felt as though he was experiencing a religious awakening with the bacon, but he wasn't about to give Harry Styles that kind of satisfaction.

“Anyway, I do have something to do,” Harry went on.

“Oh?” Louis motioned for him to go on.

“I was thinking about it, and with no snowmobile, there's still an adventurous trip we can go on.”

“Does it involve me shooting weapons again?”

“Not at all, unless you want to go practice again, which we can also do.”

Louis wrinkled his nose at the thought. Not for at least a few weeks, please. “No, thank you. Does it involve more bacon?”

“I have no more in the cabin at all, so no, that's out of the question.”

Louis felt momentarily guilty for eating the rest of Harry's bacon until he chewed on another piece and felt Heaven caress his taste buds. “Okay, spit it out.”

“We're going to visit Santa Claus' mine.”

Louis paused. This time, it was his time to pitch an eyebrow. “Santa Claus' mine?”

“Yeah,” Harry nodded excitedly. “It's this old mine in the mountain right here. It's not far off, we can just walk.”

“Sounds...”

“Cool? Awesome? Adventurous? Yeah, I thought so, too. You should finish and get dressed so we can go before sun down.”

Louis rolled his eyes, but set the empty plate on the table and shuffled over to his pile of discarded clothes and the duffel bag. And, okay, he hadn't thought this through. Changing in a single room cabin with someone he just met wasn't on his list of plans, but there was Harry. Alright.

“Look, and I burn your eyes and call the police,” Louis called out as he pulled off his sweatshirt and pyjama shirt off all at once. There wasn't any form of sound coming from behind him, thank God.

Louis changed quickly and carried the plate to the sink as Harry pulled on his jacket and boots again.

As Louis zipped up his last layer, Harry opened the front door and let in a gust of cold air. In another act of God, it hadn't been snowing all day, and Louis hoped the nice weather would continue to the mine.

“Ready?” Harry asked, and Louis nodded. The two exited the cabin and began the trek to this Santa Claus mine that Harry apparently so deeply liked.

The journey was, as he should have guessed, a lot longer than Harry let on. The mountain the mine rested upon was on the other side of town, a thirty minute practical hike in itself. Along the way, Harry pointed out the biggest attractions in Longyearbyen: a thrift shop full of probably nothing, the island's only school for everyone from kindergarten to the last year of high school, the only actual bar, which Louis remembered Niall worked at. A grocery store, which Louis wondered if Harry pointed out only to nudge him into buying more to eat. He already knew where the grocery store was, after all.

“It's over there,” Harry pointed as they trudged their way to the outskirts of town. Louis followed his line of sight, and found a dark building hunched into the side of the mountain.

“That looks nothing like something Santa Claus would be in,” Louis said. He tried to picture the run down slats of the old mine with small elves flitting around them, lugging presents to a bright red sleigh containing the fat old man himself.

Harry just laughed. “It's not actually Santa's workshop.”

“Duh.”

“That's just something the locals call it. It's actually named  _Nye Gruve 11_ , or New Mine 11.”

Louis contemplated the worn down state of the mine, which seemed more and more dilapidated as the pair closed in on it.

“It's not new though,” Harry continued. “Was closed in 1968 after a coal explosion.”

“That's fucking terrifying,” Louis breathed.

Finally, Harry took the first step into the mine. It wasn't really what you'd expect; or, really, what you'd expect if you grew up with only Western movies as your exposure to mine culture. The visible part of the mine was a huge wooden structure set on stilts, with a peaked roof and gaping holes in the woodwork from where slats had fallen out of place. Snow dusted the creaking floor, and as Harry stepped further inside, the old, ice permeated wood groaned under his weight. Louis climbed in after him, gaze traveling over every inch of the small space.

“Have you been here before?” he asked, eying the ice that crept along the floor to the left.

“Once, just alone,” he replied, fingers tracing the coal stained walls.

“It looks like the set of a horror movie,” Louis commented. A few feet away, a hammer had been dropped on the ground, covered in a thin layer of frost.

The hallway opened up to a larger room with several other hallways leading off to it, presumably off to the deeper parts of the mine. A large bronze contraption stood in the center of the room, something between one of those giant modern stove heads with a table-like object completely out of the realm of Louis' imagination underneath it. The entire floor of the room was scattered with different mining objects, things Louis' didn't recognize and all of which looked like they would break upon contact, and wooden boxes, ladders, among other things.

“This is kind of cool,” Louis whispered, peering at all the different stuff in the room. In a closet off to one side, cans of what Harry called fire extinguisher foam laid unopened for the past forty years. He turned back around to see Harry's hand splayed on the wall of ice that encased the side of the room closest to the mountain. It sparkled in the semi-darkness, and Harry squinted as he tried to make out the wood inside it.

“It's grown bigger since I last saw it,” Harry said, eyes trailing at the ice that snaked along the floor. “That's pretty neat. Usually, the glaciers don't really grow here.” He took his hand off and wandered towards one of the hallways, glancing in before going to the next. “One of these leads to a room.”

Following him, Louis took extra care not to trip over the plethora of stuff that littered the floor. Harry caught his forearm and led him through a passageway, so small that both had to duck slightly to shuffle their way through. The ice grew less prominent as they went on, until it led to a single room, much tinier than the one they had just left, with a bench against one wall and the opposite one stripped of most of its wood. The absence gave them a breath-taking view of the entire valley, from the barracks of UNIS to the grocery store.

“Oh,” Louis sighed, and he stopped, still in Harry's grasp, to take it in. Fresh whirling snow coated everything in white, and besides the whipping wind, no sound could be heard except the creaking of the floorboards and their deep breathing.

“Gorgeous, yeah?” Harry soughed. When Louis glanced over, for a moment, his rosy cheeks and frost bitten lips proved more beautiful than anything of Svalbard that he's seen so far.

The feeling was over as soon as it crossed his mind, but it left him winded and needing to sink into the bench, whether or not it would hold his weight.

“It's snowing again,” Louis said, forcing himself to focus on the swirling white outside instead of Harry plopping down next to him on the bench.

“As it does in Svalbard.”

They sat in silence for what seemed like hours, although Louis couldn't tell you how long it actually was. The snow only seemed to grow stronger, covering even the wooden tracks that split the ground outside.

“So,” Harry began, somewhere around the time Louis thought for sure his nose would fall off with the cold, “how long have you been here?”

“Somewhere over a week.” Truth be told, he'd already lost track of the days. The only time he could tell was when the sun rose and set in the March Arctic.

“Oh, so you're  _that_ new,” he said. Louis just grunted in agreement as he watched a snowflake perch itself atop Harry's nose. “Have you done anything yet?”

“Besides almost shooting my brains out? No, actually.”

Harry perked up beside him, eyes lighting up. “No? Really?”

Louis raised an eyebrow. “Really,” he affirmed, and the reaction was like a dog who had just been given the newest, biggest bone to chew on.

“I have to take you  _everywhere,_ ” Harry gasped, clapping his orange gloved hands.

“Uh-”

“There's so much stuff to do here, Louis! God, I can show you everything I've done here, you'd love it,” he gushed, hands flying ecstatically. Louis nervously tugged at the collar of his jacket.

“Um,” he said awkwardly, frantically trying to rack his brain for something that would duck him out of the conversation. The absolute last thing he wanted when he stepped off the plane into the world's Most Inhabited Icebox was to spend it outside of himself, out going on these adventures that Harry got starry-eyed about, or generally outside of the five foot radius of his little cabin.

“We can go on the snowmobile and go skiing-”

“Harry-”

“-maybe snowboarding, if you're into that. There's dog sledding, ice caving-”

“ _Ice caving_?” Louis asked incredulously.

“Yeah, I go with my friend Liam sometimes. I think you'd really like it. I think you'd like it all!” “Well...”

“Oh, and when the snow melts, there's kayaking and hiking.”

That sounded like so much physical activity. There's a reason journalists work behind a desk.

“We can even visit Pyramiden, or Barentsburg. And see the glaciers!”

“I don't know,” Louis sighed, turning away and staring into the snow. He felt the slightest bit guilty when Harry quieted beside him, no rustle of winter clothes to fill the air. When Louis chanced a glance, his eyes were downcast and his bottom lip was stuck between his teeth. His mind chanted  _alone, alone, alone._  He wanted to be alone.

“I mean-” Harry perked up “- maybe. Maybe sometime.”

However vague of a statement, Harry lit up again, lips curling into a hesitant grin and eyes twinkling.

“Definitely!” If a grin could generate actual heat, the little mine room would be a sauna. Louis could feel his idea of isolation slip through his fingers as Harry went on to describe how he's pretty sure his snowmobile will get fixed in a jiffy, and then they can go on all of this long list that Harry's mentally brewed up, and something tells Louis that he doesn't get out much. Well, besides university.

Nonetheless, a smile threatened its way onto Louis' face, and deep within him, he can imagine his own self getting excited for potential these trips and adventures with Harry. Though the only thing that Louis really wanted to do all the time was curl up into a little depressed ball and lament about the failure that is his entire life, it felt, however dimly, good to get Harry smiling because of a simple half-promise.

“I really do want to show you how beautiful Svalbard is,” Harry said, eyes crinkling at the thought. Louis only nodded, quietly crying as he thought of his tiny cabin, supposedly an escape from everything crawling with humanity.

Niall had promised isolation, but somehow, the only thing he got was a curly haired bouncy ball. Louis sighed again; wait until Lottie heard about this.

 

 

In Harry's absence, Louis found himself simultaneously dragged and addicted to the loneliness. After Louis was somehow coerced into agreeing on adventuring with the guy, Harry admitted that he had a week long trip to the very north of Svalbard to go on, something about studying the amount of plankton below the ice or other nonsense that Louis didn't entirely understand. He left him at his door with a hug and a pinky promise – how  _childish,_ how cute  _–_  that he'd be back soon.

He didn't end up stopping by for two weeks, and Louis' pretty sure he'd started to grow mold in his ears.

Somehow, within the three days he'd known Harry, everything shifted. It was something Louis didn't notice at first, as the door closed and the cold left him bitter inside. It was palpable, but in the way that the shower slowly fogs up the bathroom, or in the way the air becomes gradually thicker the closer you get to the sea.

But it was familiar. Louis sunk into it like melted butter on bread. He watched the sun rise and set, he took a trip to the grocery store when he realized that he truly could not survive in the cold without nutrition, and he organized his duffel bag and pushed it under the space of his bed. On day six, he rolled out of bed to unzip his backpack. He arranged his notebooks, books, and  _Easy English to Norwegian Dictionary and Phrasebook for Beginners_  on the only bookshelf nailed to the wall. His phone and the extra large laptop battery also came out, but Louis just shoved them back in the backpack, along as his laptop, and hid it under the bed.

For a split second, the most miniscule of seconds, he spied the phrasebook and the phone and considers texting Zayn, or even Lottie. He debated for a moment more whether he should turn on his phone at all, but the idea was quickly quashed. If no isolation due to a Harry Styles, then at least he can retain some of the dream in the phone and laptop withdrawal. That's where he needed it most, he thought. That's what he did all this for, anyway.

The weeks went by in sunsets. Well, what he can could of them, anyway. As March waged on into April, the days became longer and longer, stretching like a yawn. Louis felt like a yawn as well, trudging through the days in a perpetual stretch. And it was exactly what he needed, what he wanted when he quit his two jobs and purchased the tickets. There was Harry, and he's great, but he was here for this, for not being here at all.

But on day nine, Louis woke up to the sun shining directly into his eyes, and he only felt empty. There had been that dream, the one where the leaves dapple the sun and Louis could physically touch the shade waving on his face. And then he woke up in Svalbard, and the only things he could physically touch were the lump in his throat and the ten blankets.

In silence, the only thing you can really do is think about the lost.

Days ten to fourteen were not spent at all. Louis was just so, so numb, and there's this hole in his chest ripped deeper than before Harry had burst in. It bled and bled, and it was all Louis could do to muster up the energy for a banana before crawling back in the bed to spend the next twenty four hours wallowing in nothing.

Even during the days his mother spent chained to the bed, she was something to live for. Her pain didn't stop her from brightening his smile, ruffling his hair and thanking him profusely for the breakfast. And though the girls are his best asset, they don't understand what a lifeline she was, how much of a crutch he was to her as she was to him. It only carved out more from his chest as he thought about it, but he couldn't seem to focus on anything else.

On day fifteen, there was a timid knock on the door. Louis glanced lazily over at his rifle where it leaned against the wall next to his bed, then at the door, and decided whoever it was unworthy of defending against. His cheeks and eyes still stung red, he was two seconds away from falling asleep, and honestly, whoever it was could fuck right off.

The knock came again. Of course, if they were knocking again, it was probably Harry. Louis closed his eyes and turned his face into the pillow, imagining it to be his mother at the door. But it was just  _incessant_  and if Harry didn't stop and leave right now Louis will personally summon Satan to -

It stopped. Thank God, or Satan. Louis sighed and sunk deeper into the sheets, reveling in the warmth of them.

Just as Louis was about to drift to sleep, ready to return to the sun, a large  _bang_ rang through the cabin, and the door burst open. He was too tired to lift his head to see who it was, but he already knew it was Harry to come in with the cold. It's only the second time he's done so.

“Louis,” a voice called, and just like he suspected, Curly had broken in. Louis started to think it was a hobby of his.

Louis didn't answer. Instead, he stayed still, only opening his eyes to stare at the wood of the cabin right in front of his eyes.

“Louis,” Harry said again, and the sound of boots stomping on the floor reached his ears. Louis again didn't do anything. “ _Louis._ ”

The boots halted at the edge of his bed. Louis could feel his presence like a nail on chalkboard, and he wanted to tell him to go away, but he was too particularly numb to do anything about it.

Harry sat down on the edge of the bed, and he could hear the gloves being ripped off before a single hand came to rest on the edge of the blankets. He sucked in a breath before pulling them back, and Louis immediately regretted the entire idea of ever coming to Svalbard. Damn the cold, damn it all, damn this and damn Harry for letting it reach him.

“Louis?” Harry asked, and Louis only wished he would go away. With his eyes closed, he could imagine the cabin empty and silent, just like he liked it. “Please tell me you're not dead.”

Drawing in a large breath, Louis cracked open his eyes, though he refused to meet Harry's. He could hear a faint sigh of relief, although it was quickly cut short when Harry noticed how unresponsive Louis was being. Honestly, it wasn't like he was doing this on purpose, he was just too sad to react to regular life.

“Are you okay?”

Okay? Okay? Okay?

Harry reached out and drew his freezing fingers along Louis' cheek, and he shivered at the touch. Louis could almost cry at just that.

“Can you nod?” Fuck it; Louis nodded, almost too small to catch. “Are you okay physically?” Sure, a nod. Despite slight malnutrition due to sheer laziness, why not. “Emotionally?”

Louis kept still and closed his eyes. He waited for Harry to go into a pseudo-counselor spiel, like most people do when they meet anyone who's endured emotional trauma, but he only dragged his fingers through Louis' hair once and eased up from the bed. He paced around the one room cabin, and Louis imagined the pause was in front of the newly done bookshelf, thick notebooks and personal favorites stood like soldiers. Indeed, a book was pulled off the shelf, and Louis felt no instinct to slap it from his hands and put it gently back.

“Poetry?” Harry asked, and replaced it on his shelf, continuing to pace. Louis briefly wondered which poetry book he picked up, but he brought like five, so it was a toss up of all his favorites.

Harry eased onto the bed again, a heavy weight against Louis' body. Resting a hand against on his shoulder, the boy didn't say anything or do anything but sit in his presence.

“You have to get up,” he said then, squeezing Louis' shoulder. Louis only closed his eyes tighter. “No, you're getting up. Come on.” Harry took his hand off and proceeded to pull all ten blankets back, leaving Louis shivering in his pyjamas. “Come on, get dressed.”

He dragged the paralyzed Louis up into a sitting position, and for the first time they stared at each other with bleary eyes. Louis tried for a moment to be strong like he always was and keep the dead look out of his eyes, but there was something about Harry that didn't really make him want to care about that. He was just some kid, and Louis wasn't okay, dammit.

“Get up,” Harry said again, but this time it was with an air of sympathy. Along with the cold, that was also something Louis didn't want. He wrinkled his nose but swung his feet over the edge of the bed, and Harry smiled before heading to sit on the sofa to wait for Louis.

Neither of them said anything in the twenty minutes it took for Louis to pull on some respectable Svalbard clothes. He spent ten of those sitting on the edge, trying miserably to shake off the numb that took hold. Another ten on actually changing, because his fingers had frozen somewhere during the two weeks and all of his limbs didn't really feel like cooperating right now. When he was done and clad in his five jackets, he plopped down on the sofa next to Harry, arms folded.

“Okay?” Harry queried, eying him hesitantly.

Nah. “Yeah.”

“Okay.”

Another bit of silence.

“My snowmobile got fixed.”

Is it now. That's cool. Louis nodded.

“Sorry for not coming by for two weeks, by the way. It was originally only going to be a week, but then my mate Liam dragged me on something else down south, something with the ice even I didn't fully understand.”

Wow, Harry sure can talk a lot. Again, Louis nodded.

Harry looked down and fiddled with a loose thread on the end of his jacket.

“You don't have to tell me what happened,” he said, still picking at the thread. “Even if I wanted you to you probably wouldn't. Which is fair because we only just met. But...” He paused, peering at Louis with this, this kind of pitying look. Louis hated it. “It's not really an adventure, but I thought of the first thing to show you.”

“What is it?” It was the first full sentence Louis has spoken in, like, a week. His throat felt hoarse.

“It's not much, probably a bit lame to you, but it's pretty cool to see.” Pushing himself off the couch with a grunt, Harry held out a hand for Louis. Louis dragged himself up, blatantly refusing the hand. Harry didn't answer his question, but he honestly did not have enough energy to argue, so he let it slide as Harry led them both out of the cabin, leaving the door unlocked behind them. The sky rolled with dark grey clouds, and the strong smell of rain saturated in the air.

They trudged the short walk to Harry's cabin in silence, only broken by the sound of the engine of the two-seater snowmobile revving to life. Harry grinned, crowing like the machine was his child taking their first steps. He turned to Louis, holding out a helmet.

“Cool?” he asked. Louis took it quietly and strapped it over his beanie. Harry swung onto the snowmobile, Louis settled in behind him, and with the snap of Harry's wrist they were off, tearing through the white blanketing the ground.

The wind whipping around them and the raucous sound of the engine cut off any auditory contact between them, but it wasn't awkward to wrap his arms around Harry's waist and just stare out at the passing mountain scenery.

They drove near the coast, back towards the airport Louis landed at almost a month ago. The waves looked gorgeous, but from how far they were puttering along, it didn't look like they would be stopping here. One day, Louis thought, Harry should take him to the sea.

Louis tightened his grip as Harry took a left at a fork in the road, away from the airport. The path headed towards the mountains and seemed less maintained, more snow tumbling in the way, though the snowmobile went easily over it. A little bit in, the road disappeared altogether, and Louis hoped to God Harry knew where he was going.

Finally, the mobile growled to a stop in front of a massive dark grey building jutting out of the mountain, intimidating and foreboding.

Louis struggled to pull off his helmet and get a better look at the thing. It seemed... top secret, like some sort of government building. These walls held the information from every back account in the world, hidden in the world's most inhabited ice cube. Just where no one would look.

“What the fuck is that,” Louis said, squinting up at it. Near the top was some sort of silver display, glinting off the little sunlight that pierced the air.

“This,” Harry replied, tilting his head to take it in, “is the Global Seed Vault.”

Louis blanked. That meant absolutely nothing to him.

“It's this giant project managed by the Norwegian government,” Harry went on, “to store the genetic material of every plant in the world.”

“So it's a big room filled with seeds.”

“Exactly. Well, actually, several rooms. There's a huge drilled cavern behind this structure, and there's rows and rows and rows of packaged seeds inside.”

“Have you been in?”

“Once, yeah, there was a school trip last year. We didn't get very far inside, but yeah. Lots of seeds. Really cool.”

Cool? This was the type of stuff that struck Harry as cool? Figured. Well, the more Louis considered it the more cool it did seem. But he wasn't going to admit that.

“It's like, countries from all over the world ask to store their seed collections here, so if there's a nuclear world war or something, we have somewhere where everything is safely stored. Apparently Svalbard is like, a really good temperature for storing stuff like that.”

Louis nodded mildly, not really knowing what to say. He liked it when Harry talked, anyway.

“Did you know there's an animal version of this, too? It's somewhere in San Diego, in America. I think it would be a lot harder to maintain than packages of seeds.”

They were still sitting on the snowmobile, both of their legs swung over to one side so they were squished into each others sides, peering at the enormous metal-looking building.

“This is it?” Louis asked, waving at the building.

“Yeah,” Harry exhaled, catching his eyes. “This is all I got today.”

The burst of laughter that erupted from Louis was involuntary, he would swear that to the death. It's just that Harry promised all these adventures, sounding like they were on the Highway to Hell, except hell is a cave extending deep into some extra terrestrial glacier. And they're just sitting here on a damn snowmobile looking at a vault of  _seeds._ Harry might be a biology major, but there was a reason Louis fucked with words and not science. Seeds, of all things. Louis shook his head, biting back the small smile that threatened its way onto his face.

“I knew you wouldn't find it cool,” Harry sighed, although an identical smile melted the bitter tone.

“No, no,” Louis defended, shaking his head. “It's cool, really. Seeds and all that.”

Harry giggled. “Yeah, seeds.”

They only stayed like that a little while longer before Harry suggested heading back to Louis' cabin, and Louis almost cried at the thought of his blankets and pyjamas. This was a nice little outing, but Louis likes warmth, please. His bed, a cup of tea, and sleep.

Apparently, that dream, like many dreams, turned out to be one giant pile of get real, Louis, you will never have anything you want in life. Harry followed Louis into the cabin, shaking off his outermost jacket and settling onto the couch.

 _Great,_ Louis thought bitterly as he shrugged his own jacket off and realized that there was no tea to be had here. Great, times two.

“So,” Harry said, stretching his arms above his head and spreading out on the sofa.

“If you're asking for food, I don't really have any,” Louis said, setting his mouth in a straight, hopefully visibly annoyed line. Harry pouted.

“You should stop by the supermarket more often,” Harry advised. Louis just huffed and kicked Harry's legs off the sofa so he could sit down. He didn't reply, and it should be awkward to be in this cold silence, but it wasn't, and Harry was just laying there with this serene smile as he dropped his giant deer legs back on Louis' lap. He rolled his eyes.

“Hey,” Harry started again, “can I have your phone number?”

Louis froze. He glanced at the underside of the bed, where his phone lay turned off and hidden beneath piles of other stuff. If he gave Harry his number, it would be completely useless. And if he didn't, he would be hurt. But, wait, did Louis even want to give Harry his number? And did he care if his feelings were hurt?

Kind of, Louis realized with a gulp.

“Um,” he said, “I'm not really using my phone at the moment.”

Harry's face fell into confusion. “No phone?”

“Sorry.”

“Oh, okay. That's fine.”

“If it makes you feel any better, you can just come over and chat, and hold your phone to your ear.”

Barking out a laugh, Harry's eyebrows raised in surprise. Achievement unlocked: first joke to be uttered throughout the whole day.

“Yeah, okay,” he giggled, dimpling all cutely. Louis had to avert his eyes to keep a smile off his face. “There's not much signal out here anyway.”

“We'll just use reflecting mirrors.”

Again, Harry laughed, and if it wasn't for the confusion still coloring his eyes he would seem like just the happiest kid. Louis still squashed his own uneasy smile down. He was just glad that Harry wasn't the type of person to ask questions.

 

 

“ _Louis,” his mother whispered, carding her fingers through his wispy hair. “Louis.” She moved her hand to his shoulder, lightly shaking, though a gentle smile still caressed her lips. “Louis._ Louis.”

Louis blinked awake, and the face above him was not his mother, but a dimpled Harry, snow on the tip of his nose.

“What the fuck,” Louis deadpanned, furrowing his eyebrows.

“Door unlocked,” he said.

“Just because the damn door is unlocked doesn't give you permission to barge in and wake me from-” he cut himself off, but his throat tightened as he remembered her sweet eyes. Harry didn't have the  _right_ to take that away from him.

Harry just shrugged, leaning back so he wasn't inches from Louis. Louis didn't understand that, even after Louis treated him sourly for days on end, it was like Louis was a window and Harry was an octopus and he just keeps being stuck. Or whatever, analogies aren't his morning area of expertise. Truth be told, he wanted to be more angry about it than he actually was.

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Louis thought he owed it to the guy to be chipper about whatever it was they were going to do today. But it wasn't like he was going to act on that.

“What are we doing today?”

“Don't know, really,” Harry answered, shrugging again. “It's Sunday. Everything's closed on Sunday.”

What, so they were just going to hang out? Like chums?

“What are you doing here then?”

Darkness flashed briefly over Harry's face, and in an instant Louis knew what he was thinking. Yesterday. That was a moment of weakness. Two weeks of isolation caught him off guard and he didn't have the capacity to recover quickly enough for Harry to... not see what a fucking mess he was. All he could do was hope that it wasn't that bad, but that slightly pained expression said it all. Louis' throat restricted even more as guilt washed over him.

“I was thinking you should come over to my cabin,” Harry said, and Louis spied a hint of rose coloring his cheeks.

If Louis was being honest with himself, he didn't want to be anywhere but his bed. But if Harry wanted to, and if Louis was to dissuade the guy from thinking he was a disaster waiting to happen, it was better to go along with things. Besides, Harry probably had food, which was already more than his own shit hole cabin had to offer.

“That means I have to get dressed.”

“That is does,” Harry mused, an amused smile on his lips. He snatched the blankets from Louis' safe cocoon, and Louis tried not to think about how many mornings have started out with Harry dragging him from bed. “You can put your pyjamas on underneath, it's not like we're going anywhere.”

To that, Louis dressed fairly quickly by his standards, and the pair were off, trudging through the snow towards the other cabin.

To his complete sarcastic surprise, Harry's cabin was almost identical to his own in terms of layout. A meager kitchen in one corner, the sofa – although a different one – in another, the door to the toilet out right, and a twin bed in the back corner. The differences were in what lay about the cabin. Food and empty teacups littered the cabinets and counter, and the sofa looked disheveled with a mess of clothes on it. An old laptop perched on the bed, as well as a cell phone, and a single portrait adorned the wall. After shrugging off his jacket and boots, Louis stepped closer to peer at it; a small photo of Harry and some girl close to his age.

“Who's that?” he asked.

“Just my sister,” he said dismissively as he pottered through the kitchen. “Tea?”

“Fuck yeah.” Louis would say he hasn't been experiencing tea withdrawals, except he totally has. What can he say? Caffeine has always been an important part of his life.

Louis meandered around the small shoebox cabin. Books also adorned the bookshelf, but these were textbooks.  _Modern Biology, Arctic Sea Life,_ and simply  _Chemistry,_ to name a few. The coffee table was less made of wood and more made of paper with all the homework stacked on it, and piles of skis and snowboards were crammed behind the sofa.

“Here you go,” Harry said, and Louis mumbled a thank you into the rim of his warm, delicious cup of tea. Louis' mum always said tea helped absolutely everything, and by god, was she right. Bad day? Cup of tea. Broken car? This is why you bring a thermos of tea with you. Broken heart? Well, Louis was still testing this one out, but tea surely can't do harm to the situation.

“So what do you want to do?” Louis queried.

“Thought we might just watch a movie,” he hummed, pointing to the laptop on the bed. Louis absently wondered what the Wi-Fi was like out here.

“A movie? How boring,” Louis tutted. “Where's all these adventures you were telling me about?”

“Trust me, they're there. But even the bar is closed on Sunday.” Harry hunched down beside the bed, pulling out a bag that held a few movies. He pulled out a few of them, glancing at the covers in vague disinterest before shoving them back into the bag. Finally, he squeezed  _Love Actually_  from the bunch, and Harry turned to Louis with an expectant, hopeful grin.

“Absolutely not.”

“It's a classic! Come on, there's nothing better than a good romantic comedy in a cozy cabin.”

“The fire's gone out; I would hardly call that cozy.” Louis set the mug on the counter and crossed his arms, half pouting, half grimacing at the boy on the floor.

“Well then, I'll put more logs in and we can watch the best movie of all time,” he said, scrambling for his boots so he could go out for a few blocks of firewood. Louis rolled his eyes to mask the definitely-not-fond smile threatening to break out, hiding it in the dramatic swivel he made to shield himself from the cold that blasts through the doorway as Harry plodded outside. He trekked in more snow with the trip, but the nippiness quickly vanished when he threw in the wood, waiting for the crackling of flames to fill the tiny cabin. Louis still stood next to the counter, watching as Harry tore off his clothes and pants to get down to one layer.

“ _Love Actually,_  then?” The beam on Harry's face was inhumane, honestly.

“I bet you can quote the entire thing,” Louis snorted, but he pushed himself away from the counter as Harry slipped the CD into his laptop.

“We'll see,” he replied, wiggling his eyebrows. Oh, he can definitely quote the entire thing.

Harry collapsed onto the bed, pulling the laptop onto his knees.

“What, are we just going to watch it in your bed, then?”

“Warm. Cozy,” Harry said, patting the spot next to him. He still bore that eager look in his eyes, hand resting on the sliver of bed that was left after the giant settled in. As if Harry expected Louis to fit in there without snuggling up. Louis wondered if they still considered themselves somehow strangers.

But Harry's eyes were green. And insistent. And he had  _Love Actually,_ a self-proclaimed great movie to watch with a snow storm brewing outside, waiting in his laptop.

Louis huffed and took off his thin jacket before climbing in, being careful to only press so much of his body against Harry's. He had to remain conscious of the stove warmth, not the body warmth, no matter how comfy and cute he looked at this angle. Louis wanted to boop his nose. He also wanted to smash the computer screen in and run for his damn life.

The opening scene commenced, and already, Louis forced himself to try and stave off the boredom. The only television that ever even slightly captured his attention lately was a good game of footie, and even then it was with forced involvement from Zayn, who had a penchant for hogging the remote. And the occasional movie he did watch was something action-y, like  _Pacific Rim_ or  _Guardians of the Galaxy_  or something cool. Not  _Love Actually._ Though, he was willing to admit, action movies like that bored him as well. All media did nowadays. It was a symptom.

So Louis did what he always did during movies. He sighed and rolled his head back, only watching the screen through the slivers of his eyes. Harry was already engrossed in the film, which gave Louis all the reason to ignore it in favor of reducing his eyesight to that smudged, out of focus stare and relax into the pillow behind him. Time always passes quickly in the fog.

Fifteen minutes in, Harry paused for a swift moment to pick up his laptop and pull the covers up to their chests, resetting the laptop on both their knees. He paused before clicking the play button, glancing at Louis.

“You're a quiet movie partner,” he commented.

“Mm,” Louis only hummed, pressing deeper into the pillows and pulling the blanket around him. Harry's bed was toasty, the stove was toasty, and Louis admitted to felt marginally better as the seconds ticked by.

Louis focused in just in time to catch the soft smile on Harry's cherry lips, and Louis felt himself blush involuntarily, looking away to the laptop screen. Finally, Harry unpaused it, and Louis sunk back into the sheets and the movie. As the minutes went on, the plot got even cheesier and cheesier, somehow made worse by how sometimes, Harry would whisper lines like he thought Louis wouldn't ridicule him for it.

Louis scoffed after the seventeenth time, and Harry squawked an indignant “ _What!”_  before Louis shook his head and, almost subconsciously, buried himself into Harry's side. Warm. Cozy. Harry's nice, Louis thought in his half-sleepy-half-haze. Harry rolled his eyes and turned back to the movie, but he didn't stop quoting it. Louis liked that, actually.

Somewhere between the middle of the movie and the inevitable zombie apocalypse ending, Louis slipped into a quiet slumber, nose pressed into Harry's shoulder and breath slow and steady. Everything was so snug here, so nice, and Harry's chest rose and fell in a coma-inducing rhythm. Up and down, in and out...

_The only thing he saw in his dreams were her eyes, dancing before him. They reminded him of Harry, and he laughed as she twinkled, her own giggle tinkering back at him._

_The image pulled back; Louis saw the bed she was lying in. White sheets, and the IV drip beside her. The bags under her eyes deepened as the scene widened, her posture weakened. Her last hospital visit._

Louis jolted awake. He gasped into the thick comforter that smothered his mouth. During the nap he had somehow laid down flat on the bed, and Harry – where was Harry? Jesus, Harry. Louis twisted around, frantically searching for another body in the empty bed, and -

A rustle of papers reached his ears, and Louis flipped over to find Harry at his couch, the pile of clothes on the floor and a stack of papers in his hands. Of course, homework.

Harry caught onto his struggling and glanced up, meeting his eyes.

“What, uh.”

“The movie ended an hour ago, but I didn't want to wake you. Bad dream?”

“Um, not really. I don't know.”

The boy gave Louis a gentle smile. “You can keep sleeping, if you like. I'm only doing math stuff.”

Not knowing what else to do, Louis nodded and slowly sunk back into the bed. It wasn't as warm without Harry next to him, but the sheets smelled like vanilla and cinnamon, not salt, so that was a hefty bonus. He faced Harry as he continued his work, jabbing things into a calculator and scrawling them down one after another. The scene was peaceful, and Louis drifted back to sleep after only two minutes of watching Harry bite his lip in concentration. In this one, he didn't see his mother, but her tinkling laugh followed him through the darkness.

 

 

“First official adventure,” Harry said as he handed Louis a helmet, “is a primer. We're going skiing.”  _Obviously,_ Louis had to bite back, eying the skis strapped to the back of the snowmobile.

“I always love skiing here,” he went on, hugging his own helmet to his chest and smiling in wistful bliss. “It's so beautiful. You've got the mountains and the valleys, and everything is white, even at this time of year.”

He hauled himself onto the mobile, and Louis settled in behind him, helmet on and arms already wrapping around Harry's waist. Last time, he wondered if the boy was bothered by it, but the only thing he ever seemed to do was smile, and Louis didn't really know what to make out of that information. So he tightened his arms, and Harry took off.

The cabins faded into the sea behind them, and then various buildings of Longyearbyen, until they entered a pathway between the mountains a little ways to the right and the small town disappeared altogether. The only sounds that followed them into the valley was the raucous noise of the snowmobile.

Harry was right; everything, despite the time of year, was white. It was, in the most unpoetic way, like the Arctic dropped an open bag of cocaine onto the carpet of Svalbard. From a more... pleasing point of view, the freshly laden snow was more of the dandruff on the back of an old man's head.

Okay, Louis was still fucked up in the head. When the snowmobile stopped, poetry would be Harry's job.

Eventually, the valley thinned again, leading them into a place with tall hills on one side, a small track of even ground, and the high, spiraling mountains to their right. Snow blanketed everything possible, and in the far corner of the world, Louis could spy some bright blue shapes jutting from the ground, possibly glaciers.

Harry slowed to a stop on the side of one of the hills. He cut the engine, and for a brisk moment, nothing at all reached Louis' ears. It was as if, just for a split second, all humanity left earth, vanishing with a silent breath.

When the wind found him again, Harry was swinging his legs over and off the snowmobile, holding out his gloved hand for Louis to follow. Taking it, Louis balanced himself on the crisp snow and wiggled the helmet from his head, placing it on the seat of the mobile. Harry was already unstrapping the skis and chatting animatedly about how much he adored skiing.

“It's something the students at UNIS do often,” he said as the cord untwisted. “I mean, I rarely join them, but sometimes Liam brings me along and it's, like, the most amazing experience. Especially just after polar night, when you can finally see the sun. The snow sparkles just perfectly, almost an ethereal orange and white mixture. It haunts my dreams, Louis. I love it.”

See, poetry. Louis knew Harry would pull through for him.

Louis paused, taking in the view of the valley around them. The mountains stood like giants on their thrones before them, white ice creatures with crowns of sunshine twinkling at their peaks. And even in April, even when the sun occupies around half, maybe more, of the day, the white fluff covering the ground made a grand appearance. Louis almost didn't want to step here, lest he disturb the peaceful unbroken surface of it, stretching for miles and miles with no footstep, animal print, or vehicle track in site. Well, besides their mode of transportation.

“It's gorgeous,” was all Louis could sigh in response to the breathtaking beauty that spread out around them.

“Yeah,” Harry agreed. He had paused in his checking of the skis to stare out across the landscape with Louis, equally entranced. Maybe even more. Louis could see in his eyes just how in love with it all he really was. “Words really can't do any of this justice.” After a long moment, he resumed, handing Louis a pair of skis.

They both put their skis on in near silence, half struggling to get them on and half glancing at the mountains just to see if they were still there. Harry handed him his poles, and they both straightened out at the same time, catching each others eyes.

“Shall we?” Harry asked, pitching an eyebrow and grinning like a wild cat. Louis rolled his eyes but complied, following his only way out of this hypothermia trap higher up the hill.

They pause at the top to look around one more time before taking off. Louis squinted at the valley, and then the mountains. God, his mum would love this. They had had this tradition where Louis would lay in her bed with her and she'd count off the things she wanted to do when she got better. The first was visit Jamaica, and the second to ski somewhere where personal existence was optional. In his current life position, Louis didn't feel quite like existing, and the mountains seemed eager to swallow him whole. She would fall in love all over again right in this spot.

“You okay?” Harry broke the moment, giving Louis a slightly worried, biting-lip-of-course look.

“Peachy,” Louis said back, flashing something probably resembling a smile, and he took off, using his poles to push himself down the hillside.

Now, even though Louis' mother often pictured herself skiing on slopes probably quite similar to this one, that didn't apply that Louis himself was the best skier you would ever meet. Harry passed him easily, shouting a  _whoop_ as he zoomed by. And if Louis heard that correctly, laughing maniacally.

Louis grinned and sped along, edging closer and closer to the boy in front of him. The pom pom of his beanie flapped behind him, ever the picture of cute innocence, but Louis was willing to destroy it all in a race to the bottom of the hillside.

“You're going down, Styles,” he yelled, and pushed himself so he started shooting down the mountainside. In a few seconds, they evened out, and Louis chanced a glance over at a rosy-cheeked Harry before passing the guy, who squawked indignantly at the takeover.

In much too short of a time, they reached the bottom of the hill, Louis hitting it first. He fist bumped the air, shouting out nonsensical noises in celebration, and promptly fell onto the soft snow that pillowed below him. Not a moment later did Harry do the same thing, toppling over like a baby giraffe right next to him, almost whacking him with a ski.

“You're dust, Styles!” Louis crowed, throwing his hands into the air again.

“It's because you're tinier, more aerodynamic,” Harry retorted, throwing a wicked smile his way.

“Say that one more time and I'll make sure you never make it out of these mountains alive,” Louis threatened, punching him, or more accurately his ten jackets, in the shoulder. Harry just laughed, this horrible gasping laugh, and Louis had to punch him again to hide the smile that threatened to break out on his face because of it. Stupid, cute, frog laughs.

Triumphantly, Harry's big mouth didn't have anything to say to that, succumbing to the (empty) threat and falling silent lest he be subject to even more tortures and unsavory hypothetical death situations. Louis giggled before falling victim to the sweeping winds of the valley as well, facing Harry as Harry faced the sky above them.

“One thing I love,” Harry began, his words almost disappearing into the valley itself, “is the fact that there's never anyone out here. There's some tourists that go exploring, yeah, and sometimes the dog trips and some other snowmobiles, but almost 100% of the time, it's just you. It's only you.” He paused, and Louis stared straight through his deep, overwhelming green eyes. It was either Harry's eyelashes or the wind that caused Louis to lose some of his breath.

“I like that about it,” Louis confided, and it was like... the first, proper truth he'd said since coming here. That's why I'm here, he wanted to say.

Harry laughed softly before continuing. “I used to hate being lonely. When I first came here it ate me up and spit me out again. But you learn, after a while, that Svalbard doesn't want to choke you with its isolation. It only comforts. The untrodden snow, the empty streets and empty valleys, only welcomes you into itself. Svalbard loves its visitors. Not like the beaches of a tropic island or a pub in England, but in its own, vicious way, it loves you. The loneliness in Svalbard is never really loneliness in the first place.”

 _I am so fucking alone. I've been so alone for so long._ It was on the tip of his tongue, but the breath wasn't there and neither was the will to force it through his lips.

“You should be a poet,” he exhaled, entranced by the way Harry blinked in slow motion, and the slight tug of the corners of his frost-bitten lips. The picture blurred, and fuck, those were tears.

Harry giggled. “I could rap my lab reports,” he suggested, smile growing wider. “Nah. You're the writer, anyway.”

“You've never even seen anything I've done.”

“Well, you look like you could win a Pulitzer prize, and if  _Walt Whitman_ and  _Thoreau_ on your shelf are anything to go by, I'd say you write lovely. Even more than lovely.”

Louis blushed, but he would blame it on the inhumane temperatures of Harry ever asked. Still, Harry's dramatic monologue right then made him feel a bit inferior. He was in the presence of warriors and kings, and Louis was only a mere ex-journalist's assistant.

“Come on,” Harry said suddenly, pushing himself off the snow. “We've got some gnarly waves to catch.”

“I don't think we're in the right place for that,” Louis said, laughing and dusting the snow off his pants and jacket. Harry just winked and skied quickly away, and it's not like Louis had any other choice but to follow him.

 

 

Though they made it back to the cabins in one piece and Harry prepared a lovely hot chocolate for the both of them to settle into the afternoon, the weight of his words began to sink on Louis, and he again found himself blinking back tears as Harry calmly scratched down homework assignments beside him. Something about that population of plankton trip. When Harry tried to explain, every single word had been lost on Louis' blank mind.

God, it's just. He hadn't noticed before, had he? How different this bitter, empty, numb loneliness was to the kind he had been experiencing before. Like, there's this type of lonely that's filled with different people. There's his younger sisters, Zayn, maybe even Dan. But they're just masks. In Svalbard, there's no mask. It eats you up and spits you out and Louis is so, so lonely. And that's what he wanted, right? To be alone.

He had to breathe, deep and quiet, before he let himself think about his mother. A quick glance over to Harry, peacefully nuzzled up against his shoulder, affirmed that he hadn't noticed Louis quaking in his thoughts yet, and he willed it to stay that way, for his mind to let everything go and erase itself blank. Not here, not where someone can see.

In the last few months of her life, Louis had spent a lot of time with his mother. She was bed ridden and constantly needing medication, so Louis would spend a few nights a week in the his old room at his childhood home and help Dan with her medication, babysit the girls if he wasn't at work, and hang out with his mum in her room. And it was those moments, where it was just the two of them watching telly, sharing dreams, or simply napping in each other's company that were his favorite.

Louis didn't know why he was thinking about these specific moments, but his thoughts never seemed to connect fully anyway. Maybe it's because they never did feel lonely. Louis felt lonely a lot, if he thought about it. If Zayn was hogging the television and chatting it up on the phone with some bird he met at the bar last week, or in the living room with his siblings, when all of them were too young to fully grasp what was going on around them. But with his mum, with the closest person in his life, loneliness was a thing of the past. If he had his mum, he had the world.

After she passed away, their time together was gone. Just like that.

At one point during his rapidly dissolving thought progression, his eyes blurred and his fingers shook slightly where they scrambled to find purchase on the blanket covering the two of them. He blinked to shake it all off, willing and forcing himself to remain normal and still against the cushy sofa.

“Louis?” Harry asked, breaking the delicate quiet that filled the cabin. “Your hot chocolate's gone cold.”

“Oops,” he said, and the words came out way shakier than he intended them to. Fuck. Again, Louis glared at the ceiling and willed the salty tears away from his waterline.

Harry shifted to face Louis, wearing that god awful worried expression again. Louis desperately wanted him to stop shining it in his direction. “Louis?”

“I'm fine.”

“No, you – you're crying. Hey,” Harry said, almost whispered, gingerly lifting a finger to run it under Louis' eyes. The tears were quickly replaced, and only a few moments later did they fall down his cheeks, Louis unable to stop them. Goddamn Harry and his ability to be so  _that way._

Harry set his books on the table and turned into Louis' side, again wiping the tears as they flowed freely. Louis almost cried even more just from that. Wrapping his arms around him, Harry drew Louis even closer until he was practically lying in the boy's chest.

“Sorry, I-” I hate crying. I don't want to be in your arms right now; you make it hard to stay strong. I – fuck, I hate crying with a  _passion._

“No, shh, don't be sorry,” Harry said, arms tightening and pulling him impossibly closer. “It's okay, Louis. It's okay.”

It wasn't, but it also wasn't proper manners to spit that at someone willing to provide comfort and care. But now that the tears were falling, they couldn't be stopped. Louis glanced over at the bed in the corner and pictured of his mum buried under the covers, laughing at stories from their ski trip, and Louis just lost it.

Harry held him through the outburst, and all Louis could think about was how his mum held him almost the same way when he would come inside as a kid from horsing around and complain that the neighborhood kids were being mean to him. His throat burned and his eyes stung and Harry's chest was probably soaked now, no thanks to Louis' incredible barrier system he usually has going on.

When the tears ebbed and Louis more or less breathed incredibly loudly into Harry's arms, neither of them said a word. They only stayed like that, Harry's nose pressed into his hair and body rocking slightly to reassure Louis that, in some hypothetical, crazy alternate universe out there, it was okay. It was okay.

“Feeling better?” Harry asked softly after a while, resting his cheek against Louis to speak clearly.

If he was honest, not really. It's not like it really solved anything, and the worst cries, in Louis' opinion, were the ones that had naught a purpose.

“Thank you,” he answered, voice hoarse and almost nonexistent. It would take more than a thank you to rebuild whatever wall he had just destroyed around Harry, but the tiny phrase was all he could force out for now.

“There's no need. Just whatever makes you feel better.”

 _You make me feel better._ Before the thought could go any further, Louis catapulted it out of his mind and shut it down. He nodded, pulled himself upright and out of Harry's body cocoon, and took a deep, shaking gulp of air. Harry seemed to press back a frown, reaching out and running a hand through Louis' hair, bringing damp strands out of his face.

“I should get going.”

His frown deepened. Louis felt more guilty by the millisecond. “I don't mind, really. Stay for as long as you like.”

“No, I should just go. Um, sorry. Sorry.” Louis snaked out from underneath the blanket and stumbled around the cabin for his clothes and boots, pulling all of them on as quickly as possible.

“Well, make sure to start yourself a fire,” Harry said, biting his lip. “And eat something. Okay?”

“Alright, Mum.” It was meant to be a joke, but Louis' breath hitched yet again. “See you.”

“Yeah, I'll come by,” Harry replied, watching Louis tie his last boot and shoot up and over to the door. He nodded, and with that, he was out the door. If it wasn't for the Devil's spawn temperatures threatening to freeze them right on his cheeks, Louis would already start crying again.

 

 

For all his talk, Harry was certainly cheap.

“Finals are approaching,” he complained, muffled by the pencil between his teeth.

Finals, schminals. Louis was promised adventure.

“But this is really important. My 4.0 is at stake.” Those puppy dog eyes can get him anything, Louis swears.

So, whenever Harry was back from school, Louis slept, and Harry studied. Louis cold say this nonchalantly, but really, the amount of time Harry spent with him after the, um, incident would have been worrying to other people. And for all that it killed his personal space and time, it also did something to curb the usually constant obsession with thinking about his mother. Louis, in the end, was content to curl up on his sofa next to Harry as he tried desperately to study for his classes. Again, a lot of shit he didn't understand. But Harry was willing to be the one who kept the fire up and Louis had somewhere to force himself into reading. It was an arrangement.

“I hate Biology,” Harry cried out in exasperation one late night after hours of slaving over a study guide. “I dislike it to a great extent, and I want to go outside.”

“Nope,” Louis replied, leveling the boy a firm look from above the top of his book. “You have a test next week, you said so yourself. Since you're not taking me on any adventures, you can't go and plan one for yourself.”

Harry sighed and stared back. “You look cute in glasses.”

“No!” Louis retorted, stamping down the butterflies that flared in favor of catching Harry on his 'slick' move to get out of studying. “Keep studying your gross animal sex packet.”

“It's about the reproductive cycles of Arctic reindeer.”

“You know what I haven't seen yet? Actual reindeer.”

“I told you, finals are first.”

“Then keep fucking studying.”

Harry huffed, pouting before realizing that Louis wasn't going to lift his eyes from this anthology for at least another hour. Good, Louis thought.

Only ten minutes passed before Harry broke again. He heaved a sigh in frustration and threw the text book on the table, next to one of Louis' novels. A week before, Harry had brought over half of his paperwork and declared it easier to study in Louis' presence than not, but Louis had made sure to claim his half of the coffee table with various notebooks and novels pulled off the shelf. Not in his life will his own cabin be taken over by a buffoon who thinks his studies are more important than poetry.

Louis still didn't know what to make of Harry wanting visibly to be in his presence. Maybe it was to check if Louis still had a stocked kitchen, or was, like, alive.

“I need a break,” he said, falling over dramatically onto Louis legs. “Talk words to me.”

Louis scoffed, rolling his eyes and not answering.

“Please,” Harry whined again, prodding at the back of Louis' book. “Tell me, what are you reading. I need some English to cleanse my science-doused soul.”

“Emily Dickinson. Because Harry could not stop for reindeer, they kindly stopped for him.”

“That hurts. Deep.”

“Because Harry could not pass his finals, they kindly passed for him.”

“That would be an ideal situation.”

“Because Harry is so super smart, reindeer kindly stopped for him.”

“Also ideal. Obey me, so I can count the number of you there are now compared to last year.”

Louis laughed, rolling his eyes again and kicking at Harry softly.

There was a lull in the conversation as Louis tried to sink back into his book and Harry splayed unmoved across Louis' lower half. The position was a tad uncomfortable, but Harry's body heat provided much needed warmth in place of the dying fire.

“I don't think Dickinson would like to hear you slaughtering her poem like that,” Harry said, fiddling absently with the fabric of the blanket.

“Not actually reading her right now.” The anthology came from some small time writer that he'd passed selling books during a fair once, the one where he'd gathered enough spare money to take his sisters on a day out. She looked broke and he had had an extra three pounds, and actually, the poems were quite good. Amazing, really.

“Still. Aren't authors quite protective of their works?”

“She's dead anyway,” Louis said. Finally admitting defeat, he bookmarked the page and set the novel down on his lap. “All good poets, authors, artists, and people are dead before you can blaspheme their contributions to this world.”

Harry picked up a novel from the table. “How about this one. Are they dead?”

“The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Widely read, but a classic. Also dead.”

“And this?”

“A Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde. Also widely read, also a classic, and also dead.”

“You only read things by dead people.”

“You study dead animals, it's like the same thing.”

Harry stared up at him incredulously. “Are you on drugs? It's not.”

Louis just shrugged. Harry went back to sifting through the pile of novels. A few moments later, the sound of a thicker paper flipping reached Louis' ears, and immediately, he knew that Harry had picked up one of his journals.

“What's this?” he hummed, the thick paper crinkling slightly as he turned the pages. “Pictures of old people... poems.... Thanatopsis... Oh, I know this one. We studied Edgar Allen Poe in school.”

“One of my journals,” Louis replied, ignoring the uncomfortable twist in his gut as he watched Harry study the notebook.

“There's none of your writing in here,” he said, eyebrows slightly furrowed.

“Yeah.”

“Why is none of your writing in here? It's just poems.” He set the notebook down and picked up another, whose insides were much like the last. Harry just kept flipping through the collage-reminiscent pages of poems upon poems, and even some short stories and excerpts from favourite novels. Some Louis had torn out of books, some printed, and some handwritten.

“I never got around to it,” he mumbled, fiddling with the corner of the novel still in his lap. The last time Louis truly tried to write a poem was at the beginning of secondary school, but it just. Never came. Call it an infinite writer's block.

“Why?”

“I fancied myself a Romantic when I was younger, but as I grew up I realized that the Romantics were in the 1800's. I just read them.”

“You read a lot,” Harry commented.

“Something like that,” Louis said. He tried to, at least.

“You told me you were a writer.”

“I told you I wanted to be a journalist.”

Harry didn't answer that, just keeps perusing the journal. The last half, Louis knew was empty, being the one that he had started just before the twins were born.

“When is your final?” Louis asked, kicking at Harry's back. The boy groaned high-pitched and long, letting the journal fall flat on his chest in anguish. Louis almost had the mind for kicking him again for such reckless behavior with a precious relic.

“This is so much more interesting than biology right now.”

Louis rolled his eyes. “Keep studying.”

Harry pouted but complied, pulling himself off Louis' legs and dragging his textbook and papers back onto his lap. He threw Louis a large smile before returning to the depths of his studying, and Louis returned a sad one before settling back into the couch and closing his eyes, unable to return to reading, or anything at all.

 

 

“We're going snowboarding!” Louis could hear Harry's shouting voice before he could see him. Not a moment after, his cabin door burst open and Harry tumbled in, interrupting the almost-sleep that Louis had been drifting in and out of for the past forever. It was only ten, but the constant sun of this time of year made it difficult to fall back under any time after four in the morning. It's not like Louis was lucky with sleep in the first place. “My last final is over, the last of the snow is going to melt soon, and I know the perfect place up North. Come on, get dressed and eat something.”

Louis didn't answer, only groaning into his pillow. He wasn't feeling up to it today, but he knew Harry wouldn't take no for an answer.

“Louis,” Harry said, shaking off his snow boots and plopping on the edge of Louis' bed. “Okay?”

“M'fine,” Louis murmured, muffled by all the fluff around him. Harry just brushed the hair out of his eyes so Louis could clearly see his slightly worried, slightly pouting face. Curse that face. Curse how Harry always could sense when he was off. Which was all the time, of course, but you know.

“We're going snowboarding,” Harry whispered, eyes widening with excitement. “You should get up. I mean, if you're up to it.”

Well, if he was going to be honest, he wasn't, but he nodded all the same and grasped blindly for Harry's hand, using it to pull himself up into a sitting position.

“I'm getting up,” Louis said, rubbing the leftover half-sleep from his eyes.

“Is that-” Harry froze mid-sentence, using his other hand to point next to Louis on the bed. “Is that your phone?”

“Um,” Louis gulped, immediately covering the phone with his hand, as if that would reverse Harry's discovery of it. “Yeah.”

“I thought-” He cut himself off, thank god, and Louis shoved the phone under the covers. He'd rather not.

After a few moments of Harry just staring at where the phone had been, he blinked and stood up. Louis gave him a weak smile and climbed out of bed to get dressed, and Harry wandered over to the kitchen to make something for the both of them of whatever was left there.

It wasn't long until Louis had his arms wrapped around Harry's middle and the snowmobile was speeding off to the outskirts of town, up towards that place in the snow Harry was talking about. Louis was content with the rowdy quiet that filled the air as his gaze swept across the melting landscape. Bits of earth shone through the white, though there was still just enough to squeeze in some of the last minute skiing and snowboarding that Harry seemed so excited about.

This trip took longer than the last one, going farther up North than Louis had ever expected to go. Eventually, they did stop, somewhere with a little more snow and a little more mountain than the valleys they've been traveling through.

“Do you like snowboarding or skiing better?” Harry asked once they'd stopped and he'd toppled off into the snow with a sigh of happiness.

“Skiing.”

“Too bad. Let's go.” Harry hauled himself off the ground and shook his ass to get the snow off his ass, and Louis almost burst out a laugh for such a dorky move. Harry threw him a wink and moved to untie the boards.

“You wanna know why I like skiing better?”

“Why?”

“I can't even snowboard.”

Harry paused in his untying, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “Why didn't you tell me that before we came all this way with only snowboards?”

“Dunno,” Louis shrugged. As Harry sighed and continued, Louis stared off into the distance. Mountains rose everywhere Louis could see, but through the sliver of valley that lay slightly to the left, he made out spikes of bright blue jutting from the ground. “What's that,” he demanded, pointing to the them.

“That's ice,” Harry said, only glancing up to see.

“I wanna see it up close,” Louis declared. He had only ever seen a big thing of ice in the distance so far, and with little snow time left it was time to see the thing close and personal.

“Uh, okay,” Harry said, looking helplessly at the snowboards that he had just unpacked. “You're not trying to get out of snowboarding, are you?”

“No, silly. But you wanted to show me all of Svalbard, right?”

“I guess,” Harry said, wrinkling his nose. “Sure.” Louis kicked his feet against the mobile as Harry re-secured the snowboards and climbed back on, only starting the engine when he made sure that Louis was clung onto him.

The ice was farther away than Louis had originally anticipated, but it wasn't too long until the mobile puttered to a stop once again, right in front of the giant itself.

“Wow,” Louis breathed, gripping tighter on Harry's waste just to not feel so completely moved by the massive blocks of ice before him. The blue they had seen before was apparently part of a much larger, much more exalting glacier, white and towering and splitting the earth in two. Louis felt dwarfed in the presence of such a majestic piece of Svalbard.

“Louis, look,” Harry whispered, grabbing his cheek and tugging it in the opposite direction. Across the way, a group of five or so reindeer ambled their way across the valley. The wind matted their frosted fur, rendering them almost invisible against the still mostly snowy background. The thing that stood out the most was the antlers. One of the reindeer possessed a pair of antlers that had to be three feet high, Louis swore.

Again, all Louis could squeeze out was a  _wow._ Wow.

“Aren't they so pretty?” Harry sighed. “The smallest subspecies of reindeer but dammit if they aren't the most incredible.”

“Yeah.”

Harry had swung over a leg on the mobile so they were sitting side by side, watching the reindeer in their peaceful journey. Louis glanced over with a small smile, and Harry caught it, sending back a bright grin. Louis blushed and tore his eyes away, letting the smile fall as he refocused on the lumbering animals.

“Louis,” Harry said, and Louis grunted in answer. “Is there... is there something wrong?”

Louis stiffened. He took maybe a little too long to answer, because the almost silent “ _no”_ didn't seem to suffice for Harry.

“You don't have to tell me anything, but – I don't know. Ignore me.”

“Nothing's wrong,” Louis responded, though it was almost painful to force the words out.

“Okay. I-okay.” There was a short pause, as if Harry was contemplating if it was really okay. “If you ever need to tell anyone anything, though, I'm here. I'm here for that.”

“Nothing's wrong,” he repeated. Harry sucked in an unsure breath, biting that stupid lip between his teeth. “Let's go snowboarding.”

“Okay,” Harry said. He popped on his helmet, took one last look at the reindeer, and took off. Louis swore that one of the creatures lifted their head up and watched them disappear into the horizon.

 

 

_Inbox: 11 missed emails. 7 from Dan Deakin. 1 from Zayn Malik. 3 from the Doncaster Review._

_Cell: 23 missed calls. 6 voice mails. 30 missed messages._

Louis didn't check any of them, but that was the current status of the phone burning a hole in his jacket pocket as he scrambled up a rocky slight incline. Harry balanced on still frosted rock a ways in front of him, the hood of his jacket down and the curls that escaped from his beanie flapping in the wind. They were on a hike, because only Harry Styles wants to take a hike when there's still tons of fluff on the ground. Louis didn't mind, though, if only because he got to watch Harry flailing on a mountainside. Hiking might be a fun, low-skill-level activity for the entire family, but Harry still had all the clumsiness of a misplaced Antarctic penguin.

“You're lagging, Tomlinson,” Harry called from his perilous perch. Cheeky smiled, annoying bastard.

“You're going to fall off this mountain and die if you keep going that fast, Styles,” Louis shot back as he jumped from place to place. It was this, then a stream to cross, and one more steep climb before Harry was sure they would make it to the top.

To no avail, Harry just let out a ringing laugh and went ahead, slipping and sliding all over despite the tested gripping snow shoes on his feet. What a boy. Eventually, Louis caught up to him – as he waited next to the small meandering stream, but still caught up – and paused to catch his breath.

“If we came back later in the summer, this stream would be more of a river,” Harry said.

“How are we gonna get across now?” Louis asked, peering into the water that rushed past.

“Just jump; it's not that big.” Louis scrunched his nose, but Harry shrugged and leaped the width of it, landing with only one of his two big feet in the water. Well, if Harry can do it, Louis can too.

They continued on their way, kicking rocks, stamping through snow, and downing water on their way to the top. Harry had made sure they packed at least five water bottles in his backpack, the nut.

“Is this what we're doing for the summer, then?” Louis inquired at one point as he inspected the way the snow flew from the tips of his boots when he picked them up. Hiking wasn't the most exciting past time for Louis.

“Not as much to do in the summer as in the winter,” Harry answered. “But I have a few things in mind. Don't worry.”

A thought occurred to Louis then, one that should probably have come earlier, but whatever. Louis wasn't in the business of other people's lives anymore.

“Hey Harry,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Why are you here in Svalbard?”

“To study. Why are you here?”

Louis tensed, but he had to remember that the question was fair, even if he didn't quite want to answer it. “I find the weather quite lovely.” They spent another thirty seconds in comfortable silence before Louis began again. “If you're here to study, and finals are over, why are you still here?”

Harry hummed, peering into the sky above them, blue with a few clouds dotting here and there. “Don't really have anything back home to keep me there.”

“Oh,” Louis said. “What about that girl on your wall?”

“That's... that's my sister.”

And Louis didn't really want to pry, but Harry made it so easy. “Are you close?”

“Not really. Never really were. Just a few e-mails here and there, and I like to think that she has a photo of me on her wall as well.”

Louis meant for the subject to drop there, just nodding and continuing on their journey. Harry, apparently, had other plans.

“Her name's Gemma, by the way,” Harry supplied. “She lives in London doing a fancy PR job for one of the big record companies.”

“What about the rest of your family?” If Harry wanted to talk about his family, by all means, Louis would let him.

“We lived in Manchester, but our parents worked so much internationally that we barely saw them, really. I don't know if there's much to say besides that, really. We're not that close of a family.”

For a strange reason, Louis felt a pang of guilt at that. He thought of his own family and sisters, all closer than the prickles to a cactus. He loved his sisters to death, he really did.

“Is that why you're doing another year here?”

“Yeah, I mean,” Harry shrugged, “if there's nothing really to go back home to, why not?”

“I'm sorry.” Louis wasn't really sure why he said it, but he felt obligated in his slight bewilderment.

“Don't be.” Harry shook his head, little brown curls bouncing. “Every family is different. Ours just wasn't that close.”

Louis fingered the outline of the cell in his pocket, mulling over the seven e-mails and fifty billion messages from Lottie that clogged up the home screen. He turned away from Harry, gazing across the valley that unfolded before them. The sun rose high from the horizon, a nice change from the night time lingering just above it, and all the white littering the ground made the huddled town sparkle. The university soaked up the sun, and if Louis squinted, he could see a few students milling around the parameters. In the distance, a line of cabins just like theirs sprawled on the banks of the sea as dark waves lapped at the shore.

 

 

All the e-mails from Dan pleaded urgently for Louis to come home as soon as possible. Louis glanced from the glowing screen to the messy pile of papers scattered across the coffee table. He thought of Harry, thought of him hunched over the table with his bottom lip bit in concentration, and thought of the peals of laughter and beaming smiles that sliced through the despondent murkiness constantly clouding everything, everything. Slowly, Louis pressed the off button on the phone, slid it under the bed, and buried himself into the sheets.

 

 

Only a few short hours after Louis slipped into a somewhat peaceful, mostly dream interrupted sleep, Harry burst into the cabin, flinging open the black out curtains and stomping snow all over the cabin floor. Louis groaned loudly but pushed himself into a sitting position before Harry could even pounce on the bed.

“What time is it?” Louis mumbled, tugging pieces of mussed hair out of his eyes and blinking blearily at the giant bubble of energy bouncing from foot to foot in the middle of the cabin.

“Five thirty in the morning,” Harry said. “And you're gonna love what we're doing today, so hurry up.”

“Too early, Harold,” Louis whined, flopping back down on the bed. Five thirty is too early to live, much less  _adventure._

In retaliation to Louis' reluctance, Harry practically jumped onto the bed and shoved his wet gloves onto Louis' face, causing him to screech and scramble out of bed, searching hastily for clothes and throwing expletives over his shoulder as he went.

“It snowed, like a lot,” Harry said between shouts, “which means we get to do something I only thought we could do after summer was over in a few months.”

Louis huffed and shoved a beanie over his head, hiding the greasy hair and keeping his ears warm in a fashionable doubly whammy. After a quick cereal bar, they were on their way, Harry heading the same way as the shooting range where they first genuinely had the chance to talk to each other. At a fork in the road, though, he took the opposite way and they came upon a large fenced in plot of land littered with little wooden huts and a few large buildings.

“Oh my god,” Louis breathed as he took off his helmet, “are those dogs?”

Harry's grin threatened to split his face. “Yup.”

Before they even entered the yard, tens of dogs began barking up a storm. Louis almost froze in awe, but Harry took him by the wrist and led him through the gates and into the yard, where wagging and smiling faces stared at him from all directions. Truly, life was beautiful.

Just as Louis was about to echo that sentiment out loud, a girl with bright purple hair flew out of one of the structures towards them.

“Harry!” the girl cried, and would you look at that, she had an English accent, too. Louis wondered just how many of them there were on this godforsaken island.

“Hey, Perrie,” Harry greeted just as Perrie threw her arms around him.

“I haven't seen you in ages,” Perrie cooed. “What have you been up to lately?”

“Oh, you know, school,” he replied a bit awkwardly. “This is my friend, Louis, by the way.”

“Hello, Louis! I'm Perrie,” the girl said, waving a hand and grinning widely. Louis wondered if there could possibly be someone more enthusiastic about greetings.

“So, uh, I called you about the dog sledding?”

“Oh, yes! We're starting the next tour soon, just going to get the dogs in position to go out. I assume this is your first time with a dog sled, Louis?”

“Uh, yeah,” Louis said, nodding blindly. He didn't know what the hell all this was at all, just something about cute dogs and that one movie where they sent medicine to Anchorage on a dog sled. Or something like that.

“Here, let me show you the dog that will be leading your sled today, Louis,” she said enthusiastically, waving for the two of them to follow her. They crossed the yard, passing several little huts with fluffy dogs of all colors resting inside and outside of them, until Perrie stopped outside of a single hut. “Saskia, girl,” she called, snapping her fingers to catch the dog's attention. Immediately, a large animal slunk out of the door, bushy tail wagging. Her coat was pure black bar a white stomach, and her light blue eyes pierced through the dark clouds that crowded the sky.

“She's gorgeous,” Louis couldn't help but sigh, holding out his hand for her to sniff before gently scratching the top of her head.

“Saskia means protector of man. She's one of our loveliest and one of our strongest dogs.”

Perfect, Louis thought. Cute and fucking perfect. He glanced up at Perrie's huge grin, almost suffocated by her giant fur lined hood. Louis decided that he was okay with her.

Perrie led Louis and Harry inside what looked like a small house afterwords, handing each a hot chocolate and telling them that the sleds would be ready in about half an hour. Another man, a friend, is coming as well, but she promised he was good company.

“So you're taking me dog sledding?” Louis asked between sips of hot chocolate, one eyebrow quirked. Harry smiled shyly into his cup.

“I thought you might like it,” he replied, stirring the drink.

“I do, thank you,” Louis said. “Always wanted a dog growing up.”

“Oh?”

Louis didn't go on, but he nodded and let the conversation slide to something about the infinite amount of coats that lined the wall of the small cabin, among other things. Like how Harry should totally die his hair like Perrie's. Half an hour later, Perrie sprang into the cabin, calling for them to haul their asses outside and onto their sleds.

The sleds were one person, so Harry and Louis both took separate sleds, and Louis tried his hardest not to be disappointed about it. Perrie gave him a crash course on the different commands of and how to control a dog team, and it was safe to say that Louis was terrified of the prospect of failing this. Saskia was relying on him, after all, just like he relied on her.

Before Harry hopped onto his sled, he waltzed over to Louis, testing out and studying the various parts of his transportation.

“Pity we can't take the same sled,” Harry lamented, pouting adorably. Louis turned his face into the shoulder of his jacket to hide his small smile, but nodded in agreement.

“Harry,” Perrie said from her sled. “Get back over there. We're heading off.” Louis looked down his line of huskies, all hopping from paw to paw in anticipation for the upcoming adventure. Then, Perrie shouted something in Norwegian, and the teams were off.

There's nothing like the simultaneous rush and relaxation that comes with dog sledding, that Louis was sure of. The exhilaration of the reins and watching the landscape roll past you fills your heart, and just the right amount of concentration allows your worries and anxieties to melt away in the snow and in the pattering paws and barks of tens of huskies, whilst still relishing in the beauty of the Svalbard landscape. Louis watched the mountains and glaciers flow around them, great old warriors of the land protecting them in their adventure. Gorgeous, magnificent, sublime – all adjectives too meek for Svalbard. Louis could see why Harry fell in love. Louis wanted to experience this all with Harry right beside him.

They pass reindeer abound, along with a long line of tourists on ATVs heading back towards Longyearbyen. Louis didn't know how Saskia and the other dogs can pound on for so long, but the group of four sleds traveled for hours through the barren wilderness of the archipelago. They stopped once for a short lunch, Harry curled up in his side as they sip on thermos' of soup, and braved on towards their destination.

At last, when Louis thought his eyeballs were about to fall out in the freezing cold, Perrie raised a hand, signaling that the group had almost reached their destination. Indeed, as they flew through the large valley of snow, a dark structure appeared in the frozen ice. Louis squinted, making out a sail and a mast, covered by layers of frost. Minutes later, the sleds come to a stop outside of a large ship with two ATVs already parked in front. Louis practically fell off his sled, stretching his joints and taking deep, foggy breaths. He trudged to the front of his sled dog team, scratching the head of each one. When he reached to Saskia, Harry caught up to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulder as Louis rubbed Saskia's black coat.

“This,” Perrie began as she pulled down her face mask, walking up to them with the other man who came along, called something like Alexander, “is the Tempelfjord. A lot farther into summer, it's unfrozen.”

“What's the ship?” Louis asked, pointing up at the towering sails.

“It's actually a sort of a restaurant slash rest stop. Every winter it purposefully gets stuck in the ice, and then people come here for somewhere warm. One of my favorite places.”

Louis nodded in vague bewilderment, taking in the ship against the dark grey skies and never-ending white landscape.

“Have you been here before?” Louis inquired towards Harry, turning his head and gazing up at him.

Harry tightened his grip on Louis' shoulder. “Nope. Really cool, though.” Louis nodded in agreement. Or, at least, as much as he could in his winter get up.

The four of them made sure the dogs had no inclination of running away and trekked their way up the ramp leading to the deck of the ship. The floor, needless to say, was extra slippery, frozen over with ice and snow, and Louis was forced to grip Harry's wrist just to stay upright.

“This way,” Perrie said, leading them to a small door to the inside of the cabin of the ship. One by one, they each climbed in and entered a warmth insurmountable, like a mother's open arms. Harry moaned, tugging down his hood and throwing his hands into the air.

“I now know Jesus,” he exhaled, sinking into the warmth. Perrie shook her head, but really, they all knew the feeling.

Three people crowded one end of the inside, huddled around a bar. Small booths and tables scatter around the rest of the space, divided into smaller sections. All four of them made their way to the bar, and the bearded man behind the counter perked up at newcomers.

 “ _Hvordan var reisen_?” the man asked in a gruff voice, leaning against the counter. Perrie answered something back in Norwegian, and they both burst into a good, hardy laugh, Perrie's tinkling laugh intermingling with the stranger's deep, booming one. Louis glanced warily at Harry, who just shrugged in return. Alexander, the white-blonde tall man who accompanied their trip, shot back an individual reply, and again, they let out a little laugh. Louis wished they would shut up and get on with it, honestly.

After Perrie and Alexander both ordered hot drinks in Norwegian, Harry and Louis approached the counter.

“What do you want?” Harry asked.

“You're going to want hot chocolate,” Louis answered, digging slightly into his side. Harry just rolled his eyes and bit his lip, turning back to the lumberjack man and relaying their order. Man, Louis thought, it sure would be handy to have Zayn's phrasebook right now.

The man handed them two steaming mugs of hot chocolate, and they both made their way to a little booth in the corner, a little ways away from Alexander and Perrie. The pair seemed consumed in their own private conversation.

“So, how do you like it?” Harry queried from the rim of his mug.

“Pretty incredible,” Louis replied, a little quietly. He kept his eyes on the table sheepishly.

“Favorite part?”

Louis pondered the question. He could go simply, just ramble about the mystical landscapes they passed on the way to Tempelfjord and how gorgeous all of it was. Or. “Makes you forget everything.”

Harry paused in his slurping, frozen fingers iced to the outside of the cup. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Louis said. He sighed, setting his mug on the table and folding his arms. Harry gazed at him intently, and Louis kept averting his eyes to the glazed wooden table top. The grains were quite lovely as of now. “Like, it's relaxing, and lets you forget about... all the... you know.”

“I get it,” Harry nodded, gently putting the cup on the table. “Me too.”

Louis met his eyes. “Really?”

“On the sled, the only thing you care about is the wind whistling past you and your dogs. Family, social life, it's all a thing of the past. I love that about it, too.”

Something warm spread throughout Louis' chest as Harry talked, and a similar breed of heat reflected itself in Harry's smile, bright as ever.

Louis looked past Harry, watching as Perrie and Alexander, clearly a close friend of hers, discussed something intensely in Norwegian. Perrie glanced at him and flashed a quick smile.

“Do you know what they're saying?” Louis asked, gesturing to the pair. Harry listened in for a second, mouth quirking in concentration.

“Not really, something about... politics.”

“How much Norwegian do you know?”

“Not a whole lot, I'll be honest. Just enough to get me by.”

Louis hummed a reply, stirring his hot drink with the spoon that came with it. “My mate – my flatmate, before I came here. He gave me a Norwegian dictionary at the airport.”

Harry chuckled, soft curls shaking into his eyes. “Handy.”

Louis scoffed, but couldn't help but bite back the pull on the corners of his lips. “Haven't even opened it since I arrived.”

“You've got me for that,” is all Harry said, and Louis felt an unfamiliar rush of blood to his cheeks. He stared at the wall behind Harry and willed it to go away.

“So,” Harry started, a few sips later. “Your flatmate. Before here. A friend?”

“Something like that.” They used to be, at least. Louis drew in a deep breath. “We used to be.”

Several moments of silence, only the quiet chatter of Perrie and Alexander in the background. “Used to be?”

Louis shrugged, training his gaze on the ceiling of the cabin. “In school, yeah.”

Harry didn't push any further, although Louis could tell he wanted to. Louis appreciated it more than he would ever admit. He didn't ask why they drifted apart, or what his name was, or anything at all. If he thought about it, Harry was always beautifully like that. Patient, ever smiling, gentle. Honest. The king of trust falls. Louis didn't need to say anything, and Harry would still be just like that, just in his presence. A humble, bumbling, warm presence. And if Louis didn't breathe a word, he would stretch out an arm and hold his hand, nothing else necessary. The softest sun there ever was. He just waited, peacefully, on his side of the table.

 

 

The rest of May and June slipped by without much thought, quietly running through their cupped fingers like the grains of time in an hourglass. After the dog sledding trip, the snow disappeared from all but the tops of the high mountains, and the sun climbed higher in the sky until the night left Svalbard altogether. It was strange, because when Louis woke up with a start from his sun dappled nightmares, he woke to streams of light drifting through the blackout curtains. Sometimes, Harry would be breathing beside him, crushed up against the wall of the cabin, a light all his own. Summer in Svalbard was nothing like summer back in England, where the night remained night and there was nothing to curb his thoughts in the sweltering June nights. Louis liked it that way, really. It helped a lot.

Summer still brought cold, and more clouds as well, but when Harry and Louis left the cabin to go exploring, whether in the mountains or around the stores or by the sea, they were able to strip more layers. Harry pulled back his hood and beanie and let his long, mermaid-reminiscent hair flow and bounce in the wind. There was often a thought, tucked deep within Louis, that perhaps one of the best things about summer was how happy and adorable Harry looked to be more free. As they hiked, he would skip, and as they read poetry together, he would recite with such a dramatic voice that Louis would double over in stitches. He never told Harry that those moments were the happiest he'd been in an incredibly long time. Harry's eyes twinkled, his belly laugh rung through the air, and his flashing teeth shined at every opportunity. And when those opportunities came from Louis, he felt strangely, privately warm and proud.

“'To him who in the love of nature!'” he cried, one arm waving as the other held the book, “'holds communion with her visible forms, for she speaks a  _various language._ For his gayer hours she has a  _voice_  of  _gladness!_ 'You know, if she has a voice of gladness in his gayer hours, do you think Nature wants him to step off her visible forms?”

“Oh my  _god,_ ” Louis squealed, slapping Harry's arm.

“Louis, I think Nature just friend zoned him,” Harry said, eyebrows furrowing in faux-seriousness. When Louis threw his head back in laughter, he grinned like a maniac and flipped to another poem, calling out the words like no one lived around for miles and the only thing that had ever mattered was this page, and Louis. Louis hid his smile behind a corner of the blanket.

June arrived in a march fit for kings. People milled around town, the rising mountains stood at attention, and waves crashed against the storm in a rhythm of trumpets and tubas. When Louis stirred awake midway through the month, it was to a mouthful of tangled brown hair and the searing image of his mother on his eyelids.

Louis pushed himself onto his elbows, blinking sleepily at the mass of stone swathed in most of Louis' blankets. Drool dribbled down his cheek, and his hair looked more akin to a bird's nest than anything else, but the sight filled Louis' heart with something... nice. Warm, like a fireplace.

He let himself fall back onto his back, letting out a long sigh. The sun piercing through the curtains was no indication on what time of day it was, so Louis leaned over the edge of the bed to grab his cell from where it lay hidden underneath his backpack.

 _6:15 AM,_ the screen read, and also – a text from  _Lots <333. _Louis' heart stopped. It took a minute of squinting at the words before swiping right to open the text. As he punched in his password, a heavy body smacked into his back, knocking the cell out of his hand and onto the wooden floor. Harry let out a loud groan and rolled back over, and before Louis could reach for the cell his words broke the morning silence.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, and Louis admitted defeat and laid down flat again on the bed. Harry pushed his nose into his shoulder, despite being bigger and taller, and Louis thought he was asleep when he started speaking again. “What time is 't?

“A little after six,” Louis whispered. Harry groaned in answer. “You should go back to sleep.”

“Mm,” the boy said. “I – yesterday I called this guy. A guy, yesterday... morning. Rented kayaks for today. You good with kayaking?”

“Sounds like fun,” Louis reassured. “Go back to sleep.”

“I love kayaking. Goodnight, Louis.”

Louis rolled his eyes and suppressed a smile. “Goodnight.”

After Harry's breathing evened out once more, Louis couldn't bring himself to roll over and check the text.

True to his word, when the pair officially woke up hours later and plodded their way towards a rental shop next to the town pier, the shop owner dragged a two person kayak from the back and handed them paddles and safety contracts.

“I can pay for my own half, Harry,” Louis said as Harry reached for his credit card.

“No, it's fine,” Harry replied, sliding the card to the man.

“Let me pay you back.”

Harry gave him a sort of a look. “I want to pay for you.”

Louis returned to him a sort of a look. “I want to pay for myself.”

To this, Harry didn't say anything, just sort of prolonged the look and took the card back from the man behind the counter. Louis resolved to pay him back later.

They dragged the kayak out to the shore, stored Harry's promised waterproof pack in the compartment, and made to set out.

“I hope you know I've never done this before, Harry,” Louis said, testing out the weight of the paddle in his hands.

“Then I sit in the front, so you won't steer us to the North Pole.”

 _Fair enough_ , Louis huffed, and positioned himself behind the kayak as Harry gripped the plastic of the front half. Together, they pushed the kayak out to sea, jumping into the seats before the water soaked too much of their shoes.

“You should paddle like this,” Harry said, waving his paddle through the air in a little tutorial. When one side hit the water, the kayak jumped forward. Louis repeated the motion, and again, the kayak drifted forward. Soon, they were slicing through the water like proper pros. Harry set the course for an island not so far, where he wanted to hike around. His rifle was slung, as usual, around his shoulders, in case a polar bear happened to occupy the same island.

As the kayak propelled forward, Louis stared into the murky, dark water, trying to make out anything underneath. Nothing came up, just the tiny ice floes and chunks that bobbed in the water, so instead, he stared at the mountains and islands of Svalbard. It was different, watching from the water instead of land, or on top of the mountain itself. Louis wasn't sure what to think of that.

Eventually, they reached the island Harry so wanted to explore. It stretched on for miles one way, but didn't consist of much width-wise. They moored the kayak on a flat strip of rocky beach, making sure it was well out of the way of any rising tides, and began trekking up the hill that took them to the plateau that covered most of the island.

“Empty,” Harry sighed, almost with an air of sadness, as if he wanted to encounter one of the most dangerous creatures on earth. Surely, UNIS must have taught him how deadly they were?

They hiked out the outskirts of the island, not straying too far from the shore lest they lose their way. Svalbard itself looked even more breath-taking from here, its imperial qualities emphasized by

the way they stood sentry on the skyline. The sun beat high overhead, striking through the clouds onto the iced peaks and dusky brown-and-green valleys.

“Svalbard looks like cupcakes,” Harry commented, gesturing towards their summits.

“That makes literally no sense,” Louis said, and Harry laughed before skipping ahead of him.

Something in the distance caught Louis' eyes. He peered, trying to make out what this... creamy white, bulky shape was, and. Oh my god. A polar bear.

“Harry-” He cut himself off, resorting to pointing at it as it crept slowly towards them.

“A polar bear _,_ ” he hissed, rooted in his place. Together, they stared wide eyed at what had to be a special, genetically altered strain of  _something_ bear. The figure, black little nose heading straight in their direction, was the most enormous polar bear in the entire world. Louis stared in awe as the majestic creature shuffled over the short grass. As Harry kept watching, he reached for his rifle at a snail pace. Inch by inch, Harry unwound it from his shoulders and pointed it towards the beast.

“You can't kill it,” Louis whispered. As much as he wanted to knock the thing out of his hands, he stayed stock still, transfixed.

“I won't unless I have to,” Harry shot back.

Louis couldn't nod. He didn't have the bodily understanding of how to. All he knew was the polar bear.

They ogled the bear, daring it to come closer. It did, ambling across the island at an almost too leisurely place. This bear, it seemed, had ulterior motives.

A hundred paces away, the polar bear stopped, sniffing the air, as if looking for a sign of his next delicious dinner. As Louis watched, its beady eyes seemed to focus on him, only him. If a creature could dig into your soul, this would be the moment. It took a single step forward, close enough that Louis could see the glint of its teeth in the cutting sun, and bore its eyes straight through him. All Louis could do was try to breath.

Harry brought the rifle closer to him, peering through the scope. Louis hoped to God that the bear wouldn't come so close. He urgently projected the thought towards it, as if he was his younger sister Phoebe who still believed she could telepathically communicate with animals.  _No, Mr. Bear, turn the fuck around! Do not come closer!_

As if by some celestial, heavenly being, the polar bear sniffed the air – once, twice, three times – and pivoted all of its massive paws the other way. The bear swung its massive bear behind (bearhind?) in their faces and departed for the other side of the island.

“Oh my god,” Harry almost sobbed, letting the rifle fall to his side and slumping in posture. “That was so close.”

“That was the best thing that has ever happened to me,” Louis said, letting his grin come full force. Harry gave him an incredulous look, fish gaping.

“That was  _terrifying,_ ” he all but wailed, eyes widening. Louis' smile only grew fuller. “I think I wanna leave.”

Louis faltered when he realized that Harry seemed genuinely distraught. He punched his arm lightly and gently took hold of his elbow, tugging him back towards where they came from.

“Sorry,” Louis said as they walked.

“No, I just. I know everything there is to know about polar bears, and how to defend from them, but they're just so...  _large._ It's bloody frightening.”

“It's bloody amazing, that's what it is.” The sense of thrill that had rushed through him, it was like lighting a fag behind the primary school gymnasium.

Harry threw him another look. “You're crazy, Tomlinson.”

“But you're still here.”

As soon as the words were out, he wanted to snatch them back. It was too far, he told himself. But Harry's face turned soft, and he gave Louis this gentle smile, one he couldn't really decipher.

“Yeah, I guess you're right,” he said, squeezing Louis' hand where it rested on his elbow with his own. “I'm definitely still here.”

When Louis and Harry paddled back to Longyearbyen, returned their kayak, and stoked a fire in Louis' cabin, an insurmountable urge to call his mother overcame him. He wanted to talk to her, hear her voice, tell her all about Svalbard and Harry, and how incredible and beautiful Harry was. He wanted to hear her laugh and gasp as he told her about the polar bear they saw today, and he wanted to complain about how cold it was, but how it's never colder than without her. If Lottie was here, she would knock it out of him, and they would cuddle together until she could give him back his phone. With Harry, they just cuddled, and all Louis could picture was her beaming face as she shook Harry's hand for the first time.

 

It was the beginning of August, in the eye of a slurry of rain and wind, when Harry tumbled through Louis' cabin door with exciting news.

“Pack a bag, Tomlinson, we're going on a boat trip,” Harry called, throwing a large something on the wooden floor and jumping on his bed. Louis groaned, as usual, but Harry was quick to grab his wrists and pull him into a sitting position.

“What's happening?” Louis slurred, blinking into Harry's dancing eyes.

“I got us tickets to a tiny cruise sponsored by the uni,” Harry repeated, shaking Louis' wrists. “Three days. You, me, and the glaciers. And, like, twenty other passengers.”

Louis was still confused. “Sounds like heaven, Styles. What's happening, again?”

“A cruise. A three day cruise. We're going on that cruise. I was able to sneak us two spots on said cruise around Svalbard.”

Louis blinked again. “Right now?”

“Yes, pack a bag,” Harry nodded, that smile on his face, somewhere between mischievous and ecstatic.

“Okay?” Louis was unsure, but he complied, stumbling out of bed to grab the duffel from under the bed and stuff it with clothes. Harry told him that the boat would leave in two hours, but he wanted to make sure they got ready in time. Also, that he'd gotten the tickets two weeks ago, and that he wanted to surprise him. The bastard. Louis couldn't help but shake his head, shake his heart.

As Louis fixed a beanie over his messy hair, they exited the cabin, Harry holding both duffel bags on either shoulder. Louis would complain about how he could pull his own weight, but he was too busy indulging in laziness to do so.

The town dock thronged with people, milling about with shoulder bags and taking pictures of the mountains in the distance. Louis realized as Harry and he entered the sparse crowd that, a few months ago, he would have been a part of this group. A tourist. There were students from the university as well, toying with expensive cameras and checking intricate equipment better fit for Mars.

The boat was modest and unassuming, unlike any proper cruise ship Louis had ever seen. His mum would laugh at it, that's for sure. The entire exterior was painted a boring grey with a single red stripe emblazoned on the hull. It didn't hold very many passengers, from the looks of it, so Louis assumed him and Harry would be stuffed into a cabin with fifty other bunk beds. A university sponsored boat trip is right.

“So the first thing they put on the itinerary,” Harry began while they waited, throwing both bags onto the cement dock, “is glaciers. Like, proper glaciers, not like the one we saw.”

“Sounds lovely,” Louis said.

“And then we're going down to Bear Island, which is some sort of tiny thing south of here, supposed to be real beautiful. A lot of my classmates have been down there. It's like a bird paradise or something.”

“Don't you do that whole bird biology thing? You're probably excited.”

“You know me so well. Extremely. And then... the third day passes by some islands. People can go hiking, but it's mostly for the university students working during the summer to do some experiment type thing. So, really tiny. But cool.”

Louis just hummed, leaning into Harry's shoulder as they waited. “Thanks,” he said after a few minutes. Harry looked down at him from his people watching and gave him a weird, cute little smile.

“My pleasure,” he replied.

An hour before the boat was set for departure, its doors opened. Immediately, people pushed to get on, heaving equipment, bags, and even a small child onto their shoulders as they marched up the ramp. Harry nudged him forward and they entered the line, shuffling forward.

Hours later, the ship jerked into action, tugging away from the dock and breaking through the icy cold waters of the bay Longyearbyen sprawled next to. Its meager size lent it to speed, though with all the passengers crowding the deck of the boat, the vessel slowed down enough for everyone to take in the scenery and whatnot. Harry and Louis, bags packed away in the two bunks that would be their home for the next few days, were squashed against the stinging railing near the bow, staring into the watery abyss that held the boat aloft. Sometimes, when the boat turned just the right way, the minimal sunlight cutting through the overcast sky danced on the surface of the water, dappling its waves and plunging into the deep. If Louis squinted, he could spy flashes of shimmering leaves amidst the dark, laughter ringing in bubbles rising to the air. Louis didn't really understand why he clung onto the memory so much. Well, he knew why, of course, but Svalbard summers weren't anything like England summers. Trees were pretty much nonexistent here.

He sighed, lifting his eyes from the murky waters below and squinting in the horizon. The islands of Svalbard seemed fewer and farther between at this point in the journey. The boat had left the bay, chugging along the coast of the archipelago at a fair distance. Several patrons on board gripped binoculars, cameras, and other viewing devices as they snapped meticulously measured photos of the coast, or the water, or the horizon. Harry himself fiddled with a fancy camera Louis hadn't known he owned, although really, what did he know about Harry?

A lot, he answered himself. It was Harry that didn't know a lot about him. For some reason, it left a nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“When do you think we'll get to the glaciers?” Harry asked, breaking the pleasant quiet between them.

“Why are you asking me?”

Harry pursed his lips. “Good point.”

The boat lurched suddenly, crashing into a particularly large wave that rolled past them, and Harry instinctively reached out for Louis' arm as they tumbled into the railing. Louis breathed out a laugh, covering up the fact that sparks swarmed through him at the thought of Harry innately wanting to haul him back. That was. He didn't know what that was.

The adventure went on.

It wasn't long before the vessel had rounded some sort of part of Svalbard, further away from actual civilization Louis had ever planned to go in his life, and closer and closer to the grand glacier of their first day on the trip. Since boarding, a lot more passengers had left the deck, down to the lounge in the cabin or to the bunks for a cat nap. Despite the freezing, whipping winds of the outside, Louis and Harry still leaned against the railing. Occasionally, Harry pointed out a bird that flew overhead, or some sort of dark shape in the water. They passed ice chunks, teal and stark white and bright blue and everything in between, small and hulking. The entire time, few words were exchanged but a comfortable silence they both seemed to float in.

At one point, a searingly blue iceberg drifted past the vessel. Its flank was splashed with the bright color, and it bobbed along in the increasingly rushing waves serenely.

“Look,” Harry said, pointing at the berg, “it's the color of your eyes.”

Louis froze beside him. He could feel his cheeks blooming, but he couldn't bring himself to meet Harry's eyes. If Harry knew what was good for him, he would stop talking. Louis told himself that, but the thud in his chest betrayed him.

“The cold is getting to you,” Louis replied, fingers gripping tighter on the rail.

Harry just hummed and leaned closer. “Good thing you're warm, then.” Louis rolled his eyes and hid a teensy smile in the shoulder of his jacket.

Not ten minutes later, the scant crowd on deck refilled again, passengers pouring out of the tiny side doors. Louis caught a whisper that they would be approaching the first glacier soon. For a moment, he wondered why he took so long, but another whisper told him that it was possibly the biggest glacier in Svalbard. Louis could concede to the lengthy wait for something bound to be so marvelous.

The glacier came into view as they rounded another bend. The one Harry had shown him on land didn't prepare him for this one. The block was massive, spanning miles and miles on either side of them. It soared stories high, engulfing the tiny boat in the sheer royalty that the entire archipelago seemed to behold. The rugged face of the glacier loomed before them, its architecture sketching itself a breathtaking vertical topography of ice juts and alcoves stretching as far as the eye could see. Louis was at a loss for words. If this was the nature that William Cullen Bryant was talking about, Louis wasn't afraid to die anymore.

Harry's fingers trembled on the camera, stilling it against his chest in favor of just watching, awestruck, eyes wide and mouth slightly parted. A voice, presumably the captain, came over the intercom.

“This particular glacier extends kilometers upon kilometers inland,” the gruff, sea-weary voice said, and the entire boat sighed at once. “It's said to be one of the largest in the world. Our university students study its decrease on a daily basis, yet even with the sandpapering of ice due to global warming, onlookers say that the glacier changes them from first glance.”

Louis peeked over at Harry. He looked as if he could cry from the beauty of it all. Louis knew the feeling.

While they watched, entranced, a tremble shook a portion of the glacier. The boat held its breath. Seconds later, a broad slab of ice slid off the face, plummeting into the Arctic sea. The sound ricocheted all around them, causing Harry to slump into the railing.

“God, it's so,” he began, trailing off as the glacier prepared to calf again. He lifted his camera this time, and Louis stared as he pressed the shutter, capturing the hunk mid-air. Harry let out a cry of success and took yet another as the wave of the ice hitting the surface brought the boat to its knees and then up again. “There's nothing like it,” he continued. “It's gorgeous.”

 _You're gorgeous_ , Louis wanted to say. He clamped his mouth shut and tore his eyes off Harry.

“I don't think there's anything as beautiful as this.”

Louis could argue with that. It was a high bar to set, but he could think of one laughing voice, with a dimpled grin to match, that could flatten Svalbard in a moment.

And. As Harry let the camera fall into its strap and burrowed his arm through Louis', so that the two were intertwined, it kind of... hit him. Or more came to him. Slowly, like the swell of the sea in the aftermath of calved ice. There was nothing like Harry at all. And he was so, so damn happy, right here. In Harry's arm, watching the giant before them in awe, as Harry lost his breath to its might. He could stay here forever. He might freeze time in the ice and just be, here, with Harry.

Louis chanced a glance towards Harry, trying in a few moments of desperation to memorize him, take him in and immortalize him in the chambers of his heart. He thought back to what the captain had said.  _Onlookers say that the glacier changes them._ If people could change glaciers, there was no other person than Harry to do it.

 

 

The second day of the trip started with the rocking of the ship and the swaying of Harry's arm from the bunk above him. As Louis cracked his eyes open, he caught sight of it, moving with the boat. His fingers still held the rings of the day before. In Louis' dreamy haze, still filled with a feminine laughter and a haze of leaves, he reached up a hand and tangled their fingers together, relishing in how they slipped in place. When Harry moaned sleepily above him, he quickly extracted his hand, a sense of guilt washing over him and waking him up. Harry grasped blindly at the air before pulling his arm up into the bunk with him, mumbling into his pillow. Louis had to smile.

His revelation from the day before kind of ruined his ability to sleep most of the night, rendering him capable of only staring at the bunk above him, thinking and mulling over everything and nothing at all. He thought about his mum, about his sisters, and what they would think of him. He was positive, one hundred percent, that his mum would absolutely adore him. She'd fawn over him and announce that, if she was physically able, she would cook him a full English breakfast and then some. Louis would hold his hand throughout the meal, he really wanted to. His youngest sisters would love him, too. Daisy and Phoebe, they would keel over with excitement over Harry's weirdly long hair, put clips in it and bobbles until they declared him  _beautiful._  Even Fizzy would like him. And Lottie was known to tease; it was a facade to cover her weariness, Louis knew. She would tease them both until she decided that Harry was an alright guy. God, he wanted to bring him home and they weren't even close to dating yet. Dating. The thought sent Louis into a tailspin.

Louis had cried, too, somewhere in the middle of the night, when everyone else in the cabin was fast asleep. He wanted so desperately to have Harry meet his mum. He'd never gotten the chance to bring someone home. She had known he liked boys, but there was never the time to just. You know. Anyway.

He was no longer red rimmed when he clambered out of his bunk, grabbing onto the edge of Harry's to keep balance. Harry was blinking awake, staring at Louis lazily as he tried to find a grip.

“Morning,” he drawled, ruffling his birds nest but making no move to get up. “What time 's it?”

Louis crouched down to rummage through the side pocket of the duffel bag. He made to sure cover his phone as he checked it; Harry didn't know he'd packed it.

“Almost eight,” he answered. “I'm going to get dressed.”

“I'll be right behind you, just give me a moment.” He stretched, arms bracketing the wall of the bunk. Louis averted his eyes, despite Harry wearing a t-shirt, and made for the restroom of the boat.

It was only hours later, at the slow pace that the boat chugged along at, that they a reached their destination: the little Bear Island south of Svalbard. Again, everyone crammed on the deck, watching as the long, tall island slid into view.

The first thing Louis noticed about Bear Island was the amount of squawking coming from its cliffs.

“Birds!” Harry crowed back in delight. They couldn't see them clearly yet, as the ship was too large to bring it closer to land (and, as far as Louis could see, there was naught a place to dock, since the soaring cliffs surrounded the entire island). Somewhere on the starboard side of the ship, the crew set about to lower the zodiacs – little dingy-type boats that were built to withstand polar bear claws, as Harry explained them – so passengers could fare close enough to drag their fingers along the probably bird shit stained walls. Harry had a sparkle in his eye as he pulled Louis by the wrist towards them. A scrawny woman clad in fifty layers of weatherproof winter kit helped them into the dingy, and Harry thanked her gracefully before they set off in search of these birds that so excited Harry. Louis didn't mind, really. It was cute.

The zodiac puttered along, a few other passengers and a captain with them, until they joined the zodiacs already admiring Bear Island.

The closer they got, the more Louis felt the same kind of awe within him as yesterday. Bear Island clearly stood a few stories tall, and the flat cliff face was actually ninety degrees, almost no footholds to climb to the top. Still, big white birds occupied almost every square inch of it in some parts, and sure enough, the rock was splattered with bird excrement. Gross.

Despite the obviously unhygienic company, Harry sighed with happiness. Louis had to admit; the island was still quite beautiful. The water here was clearer, closer to the surface, and if Louis peered over the edge of the zodiac, he could see the short pillars of rocks rising from the bottom. Some broke the surface, and a little ways away a rock curved out of the water, connecting with the cliff face to form an arch. Harry snapped a photo of it.

As if to say  _here, enjoy it while you can,_  the clouds broke apart as they drifted in the zodiac, and light shone down on the island. It captured the colors of the rocks beautifully. Here and there, tufts of grass stuck out, and a stripe of green waterfalled over the very tippy-top of the rock wall. Without the incessant barking and cawing of nuisances some might call birds, one might even say the island, the moment, was... peaceful. Without the birds.

Harry, for some ungodly reason, appeared unaffected by the dissonant raucous, continuing to snap away in earnest. Louis leaned over to whisper in his ear.

“I'm going to wring the necks of every single one of these damn squawk machines,” he hissed, and Harry burst out in laughter, cheeks dimpling.

“I'll wring you before you harm a feather on their bodies,” Harry said back, although the words held no malice or annoyance.

“You'd never do any such thing.”

“You're right,” he said, and lifted the camera to his face again. “Just ignore it. Think about how beautiful it is.” So Louis did just that, and thought about poking Harry's dimple with his finger.

 

 

The rest of day two sped past in a blur of chatter with other passengers, and a hearty meal set out by the crew. Louis and Harry emerged from their bubble to converse pleasantly with them, exchanging stories and recommending places to go and things to do after the cruise. Harry shared stories from places like Barentsburg, Pyramiden, and others that they hadn't yet had the chance to explore. Louis listened with his chin on his hand and the other one twirling spaghetti.

The next day was one specifically for the university students. The boat anchored near a small island closer to Longyearbyen, and the zodiacs were loaded. The rest of the passengers lazied about the deck and the cabins, leaned over the railing and stared out into the horizon, or relaxed in their squished bunks. With an army of chairs and small tables, and several Styrofoam cups of hot chocolate, the crew set up a lounge on deck.

Harry and Louis huddled together at a table in the middle of the deck, fingers frozen on their cups and legs pressed together from thighs to toes. For warmth, really. Several other people lazied about, breathing with the rocking of the boat, chatting amiably.

“It's quite a nice day,” Harry commented, knocking his foot against Louis' and taking a sip.

Louis hummed back, peering into the clouds that lumbered across the sky, slightly grey, though mostly happy.

Somewhere on the deck, a commotion broke out. An old man, clad in a thick anorak, produced a massive accordion from seemingly nowhere. People whooped and cheered as the man settled down on a chair, placed his fingers on the plethora of buttons and keys, and started to play.

A wonderful tune seeped into the air, beginning slow and melodious. Measures later, his fingers moved faster, speeding it up and pressing belting notes that filled the air and jumped from place to place. Harry began snapping his fingers, humming under his breath with the tune.

“This was one of my au pair's favorites,” he supplied, singing through a grin. “She played all these accordion records for me; I have no clue why.” Around them, people hopped up to dance. A couple took center stage, the man grabbing her hand and spinning her to a flurry of notes. Her laugh rang out, and others stood up with it.

As Louis watched in delight, Harry pushed back his chair, shaking him out of his revere. He looked down at Louis expectantly, holding out a hand. Louis hesitated, but Harry's eyes shone, and Louis couldn't say no to that, could he? So he took his hand, and Harry pulled him onto the makeshift dance floor.

The tune was gaining tempo again, and Harry shimmied, as best as he could in his raincoat, keeping eye contact with Louis the entire time. Louis laughed, entangling their fingers even more, and, not being able to help himself, launched into dancing with Harry. At a certain point in the tune, the entire crowd yelled, and couples started spinning in circles. It was probably some authentic dance, and though Louis didn't know it at all, Harry whooped with them and dragged Louis around with both arms. Louis' whole face hurt from smiling, and Harry's face looked about ready to split in half. People stomped their feet, clapped their hands, and Svalbard hung like a moon in the background.

Abruptly, the song halted, and everyone erupted in cheering, shouting thanks and “Another!” at the old man. He boomed a deep howl of laughter back and dove right into the next cheerful tune. Louis and Harry danced for that one as well, and the next one, until the cold didn't matter anymore and they both huffed and puffed and moved their feet.

“Now,” the old man called, repositioning the accordion on his knee. “It's time for something a little slow. Something to remember Svalbard by.” There was a pause, and everyone held their breaths. He pressed the buttons lightly, pulling on the middle in an almost gliding way, and a soft murmur swept through air. If an accordion can make a sound akin to a murmur.

Harry sighed. “I know this one too,” he half-whispered, smile stretching again. “Another au pair. She sung it to me when I was little.” Again, he hummed the notes back, slightly off key.

While several other dancers sat down and rested up, Harry, rosy cheeked and glistening, kept his loose grip on Louis' fingers and just swayed, following the path of a tiny circle.

“ _The smile from your lips brings the summer sunshine,_ ” he crooned, pulling Louis ever so slightly closer to him. “ _Tears from your eyes bring the rain._ ” His hands seemed to move on their own accord, slipping from their hold onto Louis' waist, loosely at first, then tighter and tighter until Louis had to tip his chin an unfair amount to meet Harry's eyes. His voice was nice, though, and it filled Louis with a certain warmth definitely not from the dancing. “ _I feel your touch, your warm embrace, and I'm in heaven again._ ”

The song swam on, and Louis and Harry moved as one. Everywhere Harry touched sparked with fire and soothed with it, lulling Louis into him. He sang still, softly into Louis' ear.

Without really thinking about it, Louis hooked his chin on Harry's shoulder, relaxing with an exhale. Svalbard stretched before them, far beyond the horizon, far beyond any of their imaginations. The sky melted into the sea, and the even Harry's voice blended in as part of the scenery. Gentle, warm, and soothing.

When the song ended, and the old man paused for a drink, Louis and Harry stayed in each others embrace for as long as he permitted them. Louis took the chance to whisper something between them.

“You know,” he said, muffled in Harry's shoulder. “I'm glad you gave me that damn casserole that first night.”

Harry barked out a surprised giggle, drawing back to see if Louis' expression was serious. He kept his hands splayed on Louis' hips.

“It was a good casserole,” he said, cheeks dimpling.

“You're missing the point,” Louis huffed. Harry shook his head and looked sheepishly down to his shoes.

“I know what you mean,” Harry replied, fingering at the fabric of Louis' jacket. “I'm glad I did, too. Though I  _am_ a pretty good cook.” Louis rolled his eyes. “Nah, I'm glad I met you, too. I reckon you're the best thing I've found in Svalbard so far.”

That sent shivers through Louis' entire body, right down to his toes. “Dunno if it makes you any more happy, but me, too. Best thing, I mean.”

“Well,” he said, “I am honored with such an esteemed position.”

Louis opened his mouth to reply, but the accordion burst into life and all Louis was thinking of saying had flown out of his head. It didn't really matter, anyway. Not with Harry engulfing him like he was right now. That was good enough for him.

 

 

“When thoughts of the last bitter hour come like a blight over thy spirit, and sad images of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, and breathless darkness, and the-”

“You sure like that poem, don't you?” Louis asked.

“You've highlighted and underlined almost the entire thing,” Harry replied, rubbing a thumb over the yellowed text. “Of course it would be a favorite.”

“And you don't even like poetry,” Louis said. He fiddled with the pages of the notebook in his fingers.

They were lying on the sofa, head to head with their feet dangling on either side of the sofa. Harry held one of Louis' poetry books, and Louis held a notebook to his chest. He didn't touch it nor flip through it, but it was the notebook that held all his favorite quotes, and Lottie had drawn in it when she was younger and didn't know better.

“What does thanatopsis mean?” Harry inquired, pointing to the title of the poem.

“Thanatopsis. A view or contemplation of death,” Louis recited. It had been the first definition he wrote in the notebook.

“Dark,” Harry said.  _My life, basically,_ Louis thought.

Harry closed the book, setting it down on his chest. If someone looked from above, they'd be a mirror of each other.

“So,” Harry began, running his fingers over the spine of the book. “You know how the uni students went on that trip on the boat?”

“Yeah?”

“I've got, um, a small trip as well. It's just up North, to that mining town, Barentsburg. We're studying a specific species of plant, or something.”

Louis paused. “How long?”

“A week.”

Louis' fingers froze on the notebook. A... week. A week.

“Okay, then,” Louis said.

Harry twisted around, propping himself on his elbow to look down on Louis. “That's all?”

Louis averted his eyes. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Won't you miss me?”

 _Duh_ , Louis thought. God, he would like hell. His mind raced back to the first two weeks Harry had left him alone, and how hollow they felt. Boneless, was how he described it.

Harry must have noticed the light, if there was any in the first place, leave his eyes, because he carded his fingers through Louis' fringe and furrowed his eyebrows. “Would you?”

“Maybe.”

Harry smiled down at him; his curls fell into his eyes. “You will. You definitely will.”

“You can shut the hell up, please,” Louis retorted, swatting at his arm. Harry giggled. “But, uh. You won't leave me for two weeks again, will you?”

“No, no, of course not.” He held his lower lip fast between his teeth. Louis waited for himself to seethe at the knowing tone of Harry's voice. He probably remembered that breakdown.

Harry laid flat on the sofa, curls tickling Louis' cheeks. He threaded his fingers through his tangled hair once more, gently working through knots.

“Do you want me to read more?” he asked.

Louis drew in a deep breath. “Yes, please.”

 

 

The week without Harry was surprisingly uneventful. As soon as he saw him off, at five am on the trek to the UNIS campus, Louis expected to be crushed under the weight of remembering. If Harry wasn't in his presence, he feared he would crumple, like dust into the wind. But the fact that there wasn't much to say about it, the fact that this section is so brief, was a testament to how everything was feeling just a little bit... better. If that was the right word for it.

There was the night, in the middle of the week, that Louis jolted awake, hyperventilating and fumbled for his phone, but he stopped short two seconds of pressing the call button. It was progress.

 

 

Admittedly, Louis was slightly overcome with numbness when Harry finally tramped into his cabin at nine in the morning, just as Louis slipped off into a restless sleep.

Harry huffed, shucking off his outer layers in blatant frustration, and crawled under the covers with no preamble. Louis found himself pressed against the cabin wall, blinking his eyes to focus on Harry's wet hair smothering his pillow.

“Hello to you,” Louis mumbled. Even in his stupor, Louis possessed the decency to converse with a close friend.

Harry didn't answer, only sighed.

“Something wrong?”

“My dad called me,” he muttered into the pillow, and that shook Louis a bit. This was the first time Harry ever talked about contacting his family. Louis didn't reply, and Harry continued talking. “Was angry at me for wanting to do another year here. Doesn't understand what there even is to be done here anymore. He thinks Svalbard is a giant ice block and nothing else.”

“It practically is,” Louis said.

Harry frowned. “That's not the point.”

They fell silent for a while, Harry wallowing in his frustration as Louis ran a hand up and down his arm and waded in his own numb sadness. He knew, deep inside, that right now was not the ideal time for Harry to be letting out his anguish.

Not until a while later did Harry speak up again, this time less agitated and more level-headed. “That's not the only reason he wants me to come home, though.”

“Oh?” Louis said. Forcing his eyes open to watch Harry, he traced his fingers over the ribbed yarn of his long sleeve t-shirt absent-mindedly.

“He wants me to come back for the family business.” The sentence was barely audible.

“And you don't want to?”

“No, I. I've always wanted to be a scientist, a researcher. And I'm so close, you know?” Louis nodded. Harry still had a few years to go, but every day was a day closer to his dream. “But I don't think... I don't think it's going to happen. I think I have to go back.”

His hand froze in place. “Why?”

Harry squeezed his eyes shut, and Louis could see droplets coating his eyelashes. “He told me that his health is declining. His liver, or whatever. I wasn't really listening at that point.”

Louis' stomach plummeted. Oh my god. His dad was – his dad was -

“Louis?” Harry's rimmed eyes opened and eyed him curiously, wondering why his mood had changed so suddenly. Louis forced his fingers to continue their idle tracing, but this time it felt more stilted and unnatural. Harry's dad was dying.

“Sorry,” Louis choked out. “I'm sorry.”

“It's not your fault my dad's alcoholism is catching up to him,” he laughed, wet and lifeless. Louis shook his head.

“Sorry,” he repeated, and wrapped his arm around Harry closer into him. He blinked his own tears back, holding Harry as tightly as possible.

From the confines of Louis' chest, he began speaking again. “He gave me one more year here. Then I have to go back to Manchester, and I have to learn about fucking finances and whatever he does.”

Louis couldn't answer, could only bury his nose in Harry's damp ringlets and hope it counted as comforting.

“Louis?” Harry gripped at Louis' shirt. “I don't want him to die.”

Shaking his head again, he clutched tighter and tried to ignore Harry shuddering. They fell asleep like that, and forgot the whole day.

 

 

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

Harry wrapped one hand on the handle of the snowmobile, and the other covering Louis' hands where they crossed in the middle of his stomach. Louis could feel the warmth even through layers of gloves.

Harry knew that was dangerous. They both didn't care.

They left the cabin behind and raced for the outskirts of town, the mountains. Although no snow touched the ground, Harry had assured Louis it would be a fine trip to Pyramiden. Also, he hated the idea of borrowing another student's boat just to get to somewhere they've all been before. Pyramiden, the abandoned Russian mining town, was the standard first attraction for everyone who docked on Svalbard's shores. Most of the time, people visited by guided tours or a cruise stop, but Harry insisted that alone was the best way to experience it.

When the snowmobile rumbled to a stop in the town square, alone was what they were.

Pyramiden was larger than Louis had expected. He'd thought maybe a few buildings here and there, a single decaying mine shaft akin to the Santa Claus mine. In reality, more red brick buildings dotted the landscape than Louis could count, and the mine that was visible climbed higher and higher onto the diamond shaped mountain the town took its name after than he ever hoped to climb. Before them in the dying grass, a massive sign loomed, something that looked like the globe with a polar bear on top. Across the square, a massive bust of Vladimir Lenin stood tall. The northernmost statue in the world, Harry supplied. Damn, Louis thought.

They powered down the mobile and hopped off, Louis sweeping his eyes over the entire town and taking in its enormity. On some buildings, communist style red-and-blue signs cascaded down the brick, adorned with some sort of emblem. Louis really should have paid attention when learning about Soviet Russia.

“Where do you want to explore?” Harry asked, casting his arm out to gesture to Pyramiden.

“No idea,” Louis breathed. His sight caught on a particularly large building, a set of stairs leading to the large, stained concrete entrance. “What about that?”

“Cool,” Harry said, and led the both of them over. “If I remember correctly, this is the recreational building. All the families would come here to relax on their off time. There's a lot of rooms and stuff.” Harry climbed the steps two at a time, waiting patiently at the top for Louis.

Harry yanked at the front door, its hinges crying out against it. The first thing they entered was the main room, several corridors and one staircase leading away from it. The walls were faded and the floor decaying, littered with bits of plaster. Harry wandered down one of the corridors, and Louis had no choice but to follow him. Their steps echoed in the emptiness.

After a short walk, the room opened up into, of all things, a basketball court. Harry laughed, ringing out in the entire room.

“This is strange,” Louis said, eying the dark red circle in the center of the court.  _Sport-something-Louis-couldn't-pronounce Pyramiden._ A sport center for the miners and their families.

“It's like they left in the middle of the game,” Harry commented, pointing to the ball rolled into the corner of the room. He toed along the painted lines of the court.

Taking Louis' wrist, Harry led them out of the sports room and into another corridor. This one held a set of double doors at the end. Louis twisted the antique glass doorknobs, slowly pulling the doors back to reveal the backseats of a miniature theatre.

The room was dark, but when Harry shone his phone flashlight, ten rows of plush red theatre chairs and a small stage with a piano in the center lay at the front.

“Wow,” they both sighed. Louis traipsed down the aisle, letting his fingers glide along the frayed cloth of the chairs. The crimson fabric held the indents of forgotten Russian bodies. Treading carefully, Louis mounted the steps to the stage as they groaned under his feet. Harry shone his light on him, and it was like a spotlight on him and the piano.

The piano gleamed in the light, dancing in the dust motes and stale air that surrounded it. Its yellowing keys and dim black paint sported a thick layer of the dust, though finger prints painted the recent tourists flitting through the theatre. Even an aged piece of piano music rested on the piano, another pile of it on top. The title was written in Russian, and Louis was struck with the thought that it was either sneaked in by a tourist, or left in the same place for the last twenty years. Just... there.

Louis played a key, the only one he remembered from a brief stint of self-taught piano before he was overwhelmed with babysitting his sisters. Middle C, kind of lame. Harry clapped from his place by the doors anyway. Kind of dizzying.

Harry pushed himself off the wall and hopped the stairs to join Louis, keeping the spotlight on him. The only sounds were his steps and their breathing.

“I don't remember any piano,” Louis said, looking down.

“I had to take lessons when I was little,” Harry said, feathering one hand on the keys. “Fucking hated it.”

Louis had to laugh, pressing down the slightly alarming envy at Harry's opportunities. Now was not the time.

“I wish I knew,” he said, smiling a bit wistfully. Harry bit his lip like he wanted to ask, but knew not to. Louis didn't know why he felt guilty about it.

They moved on after that, exploring a variety of rooms within the recreation center – a plethora of musical instruments occupied one, including a massive  _balalaika_  – and headed out into the courtyard for another building to peruse. There were still no tourists, which would be quite pleasing if it didn't heighten the deafening silence of the pure nothing that settled over Pyramiden. Not even a small animal bounded across the land.

The pair made their way to what they presumed to be a room and board, judging by the squareness and neat repetition of the windows covering the outside. It reminded Harry of a dorm back at the university in Oslo. They had to squeeze past the partially broken double doors, entering a main lobby that didn't look all too different from the one of the recreation center. The Russians didn't have that big of a budget, apparently.

Across the way were more corridors, leading to different rooms of the building.

“Pick one,” Harry said. Louis took a sharp right.

The condition of the building wasn't so different than the other one, with peeling patterned wallpaper and white-scraped hardwood floors. Doors hung ajar, peering into tiny rooms housing twin beds with the sheets still on. At the end of the hallway, a window opened into Svalbard, framing the diamond mountain. The last door, the one Louis chose to step into, was some sort of office. Though a twin bed was still shoved in the corner, threadbare covers thrown over it somewhat hastily, a large desk occupied the other wall, overflowing with different papers and folders and various Russian paraphernalia. Harry walked over, his footsteps echoing in the room, and picked up a fading paper, studying the alphabet as if he could read any of it.

Next to the covered desk, a file cabinet stood ajar, holding even more papers. They were all possibly important documents detailing the lives of the people in the building. Visitors would never know.

Harry giggled, and Louis glanced up. “Would you look at that,” he said, pointing. A teacup still rested on the nightstand next to the bed.

“It all looks like they left so suddenly,” Louis said.

“During a nap,” Harry offered. “While writing a letter.” He picked up a pencil that had rolled off of a stack of papers. “In the middle of life, so it seems.”

In the middle of their lives. An entire town up and left, right in the middle of afternoon tea.

For a moment, after that settled in, Louis felt like he needed to sit down. It was too surreal. Everyone had just... left, and all there was left were adventurers to even hope to bring life back again. The emptiness that crowded down the hallways and crammed down their throats would never let up.

Louis wondered what the time was back in Doncaster, and if Lottie would be having afternoon tea right now, sitting at the table with their sisters and Dan. He wondered if they were all clean and well dressed, and doing well in school. He wondered if she was smiling. Most of all, though, he wondered if home felt just as quiet as Pyramiden.

 

 

A freak snow storm led Harry and Louis to stay in. The clouds above Louis' head were a literal representation of the ones within his mind. If Harry noticed, he didn't say anything, just kept on reading his book and threading his fingers through Louis' fringe.

The wind pounded the outside of the cabin. Everything but the space surrounding the swinging lamp shrouded itself in a dark grey, despite Svalbard's eternal summer sun still beating in late August.

They laid like that for hours, Harry propped up against the headboard and Louis wrapped in the blankets, half asleep and half kept awake by almost paralyzing sadness gnawing at his stomach.

Today marked the first of his mum's birthdays that he wouldn't be spending with her. The thought alone sent Louis into a tailspin. He shuddered, closing his eyes and attempting to bury himself in the pillow. Harry's carding fingers shifted with him, moving to the nape of his neck.

Harry beside him today was both a curse and a blessing. As much as Louis probably needed someone to clutch onto, the guilt of not being able to tell him what hollowed out his eyes had begun to sink its ugly teeth into his chest. Louis hoped like hell that if he cried today, Harry wouldn't ask any questions.

As if on cue, Harry snapped his book shut and leaned over Louis to drop it on the floor, settling back and pulling the covers up to their chests. He smiled gently until he caught sight of Louis' wet cheeks, and the expression slipped clear off his face.

“Are you okay?” Harry asked urgently, wiping a thumb under Louis' eyes. Louis wanted to say yes, but if he said anything at all he would surely fall into tears. “Hey, Louis, are you alright?”

Louis nodded, trying to breathe deeply.

Harry's frown deepened, though with worry more than anything else. “You always say that. You're not fine, Louis.” Damn him, really. Sounded just like Louis' mother. And that thought didn't help at all. “Will you tell me?”

God, Louis wanted to. He wanted to so bad, and he didn't know when that happened. He didn't know when he wanted to trust Harry, and when Harry had him shook up so bad that he harbored an undeniable urge to give everything. He didn't know, he didn't know.

He was allowed to be sad today, he told himself. He hadn't even been able to buy her a present, and he was allowed to be sad.

Harry brought his hand back to Louis' hair, and Louis thought it comforting, as always. The best thing was that Harry never asked outright, he just cared. And in that way he was so, so much like his mum that it speared his heart something painful.

“You know you can trust me, right?” Harry asked, voice soft and flimsy against the snow storm raging outside. Louis shuddered through a nod. “You've always been so sad. You don't have to tell me why, I. I don't want you to be sad.”

Louis has, hasn't he? He's always been terribly sad. Even before she died, it was like a switch he couldn't turn off. Her death jammed it, and pry as he might, there would always be times where he was sad. Like now. Like all the time. And Harry might lift him up and show him that there are always other stars in the universe, but the black spot in the corner, that was his favorite. The dark night sky still poured through the hole and caught his throat.

“I'd really like to know,” Harry said. “Some day. Because I do want you to be better.”

Louis forced himself to shake his head through the tears. He never in his life really told any

one anything, and he wasn't about to start now. Not right now. He just burrowed into Harry's chest and tried to return to normal.

Abruptly, Harry pulled Louis away from him and clambered out of bed. He picked up the book from the floor, squeezed Louis' trembling shoulder, and headed for the bookshelf. As he wedged the book in its place, Harry plucked another copy off the shelf, a book that Louis had read front to back about a billion times during the course of his life. The famous poet anthology he'd stolen from the library right before he met Zayn. That time seemed so very far away now.

“I've always wondered why,” Harry began, climbing back into the twin and hugging Louis back to himself. Relief surged through him at the returned contact, “why Thanatopsis is your favorite poem. What about it makes you want to highlight literally every word.

“The first time I read Thanatopsis, I read about death. I handpicked the words I saw and I chalked it up to the lamentation of someone dearly departed, and I erased all the rest. The second time I read it, you were beside me, and as I laughed and shouted the words to you, I read about life. I read about springing back from the roots and blossoming in the ashes of nature, because that  _is_ nature. I'm wondering, Louis. What do you read about when you read Thanatopsis?”

Louis couldn't answer. At different points of his life, the poem always held different things. When he first scanned the words, his baby sisters were banging at the door, and his mum was bustling in the kitchen. He had read about life. Over the last few years, only death seemed to come of anything.

“Thanatopsis,” Harry whispered, “is either a view or contemplation of death, or of life. And I'm probably overstepping my boundaries, Louis – please slap me if I am. I think, maybe, the reason that you're sad is because something, or someone, died inside of you.”

 _Inside of me._  No, no, that was wrong. That was extremely wrong. Mum wasn't dead inside of Louis, it was in Louis' heart that he kept her _alive._  She was the dying embers of light inside of him and he was there to keep her alive. Today was her birthday, couldn't she be alive? Can't she just, for once, be alive?

Louis burst into tears, wailing as the words  _can't she be alive? Can't she be alive?_ played like a broken record. Can't she be here? Can't she hug him, touch him, can't she take them all on a picnic and laugh about fucking swans, or ducks, or whatever they where? Can't she – can't she -

As Louis sobbed, Harry dropped the book on the sheets and encircled him. Louis felt the life throbbing through him, his rabbiting heart beat against his ear, and Louis felt the death inside of himself through to the tips of his fingers where they gripped at Harry's shirt. He was everything and nothing all at once, and god, he just wanted, for one second, for her to be alive. There would be streamers and breakfast in bed, and Phoebe and Daisy would try their best singing voices, and even Dan would kiss her forehead and tell her  _happy birthday, I am glad you are alive._  Because that's all he ever was. Glad. And all Louis could ever be was sad.

“I-I-” Louis choked out, forcing the words up his throat. “I w-want her to be alive.”

“Shh,” Harry soothed, stroking his tangled hair and pressing a soft kiss to the top of it. “It's okay. You're okay.”

“I-it's  _not._  S-she's not here, not even inside of m-me. She told me she was for-forever inside of me.” That day before she slipped into a coma, overcome with her pain. She had pressed a finger over his pulse point and promised him. She had promised him. “T-today's her birthday, Harry. I don't-” he had to pause, tears falling down faster than he could keep track of them. His quivering body must have been hard for Harry to keep hold of. “I don't feel a-anything.”

“You feel something if you're crying, Louis,” Harry said. “You're feeling something.” Louis only surrendered to another round of racking bawls, flashes of bright smiles and party hats crawling through his screaming mind. “She went not like the quarry slave at night, Louis. She wrapped the drapery of her couch around her and laid down to pleasant dreams. Reading death in Thanatopsis is still reading life, because all death becomes life to the earth. She's still here, Louis. She's still here.” And god, Harry didn't make any fucking sense, but somehow, it was all Louis needed right then. Because Harry didn't know, he didn't know anything, and his arms still held Louis in place like they knew all the joints hanging at the sinews only needed stitches to work again. Like he knew he could keep blowing on Louis' little fire and life would be read into it again.

 

 

“She was my mum,” Louis mumbled, twisting a loose thread between his fingers. Time had sluggishly passed since Louis – stupidly, he wanted to think – crumbled in front of Harry. The storm still bore down on them, but a sense of restless peace settled between Louis' bones long enough to succumb to giving, piece by splintered piece, himself to Harry. “And she died a week before my birthday last year, December 17th.”

“Oh god, Louis,” Harry whispered, “ I'm so sorry.” He looked genuinely distraught and apologetic. Louis didn't want to dwell on it.

He shook his head. “Nothing really to be sorry about. It was a long time coming.” Taking a shaking breath, Louis thought,  _might as well plunge into it_. “When I was twelve, she started getting pains in her lower back. My youngest sisters had just been born, so we thought nothing of it, but – they never stopped. Just kept spreading, and getting worse. Like it was gnawing at her.” Louis blinked, remembering what it was like to watch his mother lose herself and her independence to the pain. “She, uh, she quit work. And I took it up. I quit school at sixteen and got two waiter's jobs, to make up for what she couldn't do. The rest of my days were spent babysitting the girls. I cooked, cleaned, worked. Cared for my mum.”

“That sounds like it was way too much, Lou,” Harry said, petting his hair and biting his lip. Louis laughed dryly.

“Well, someone had to do it.” He laced the statement with a smidgen of biting sarcasm, though Harry gave no indication of receiving it. “At nineteen, my old friend Zayn gave me a job as one of the newspaper's journalist's assistant. I'd always dreamed of being a poet, or a novelist, so I hoped that journalism would be good place to start. I had that, the job at the local American-style diner.

“And, um, Mum... couldn't walk at this point. The doctor's said there was no way of getting her legs to calm down. She spent her days gritting her teeth and, if she got in it at all, hissing a the belt of the wheelchair holding her lower back in place. So, if I wasn't at work, I was taking care of her, feeding her and helping her around the house. The girls didn't see their mum that much because they were busy with school or play dates or something, and I was either taking care of them or her.” Louis frowned. They spent a lot of time as a family, yet their mum toiled through much of her day alone, bed-ridden. It was something she always despised.

“She forced me to move out when I was around twenty-one, and a boyfriend, Dan, that she met through family somewhere moved in with them to take care of them. I got a flat with Zayn, but, I have to tell you, by then he was a real asshole about everything. Said he was tired of me always having to do this and that and take care of this and that, and talking about my mum and whatever. He didn't know how much we had to save up to buy her a machine to help her breath at night, because a rising chest was too much for her to handle. She was so bad.”

He had to pause, staring at a stain on Harry's t-shirt and willing the beginnings of tears away from where they tugged the edges of his eyes. Harry didn't prod him on, just did what he always did, and gently tugged through knots, listening intently. Like he genuinely wanted to listen.

“Mum lived for around a year like that. Pretty difficult. There was a point where moving her arm from the bed to the cereal bowl hurt so much she would cry during every meal. And, like, despite the medicines, she never got better from that.” His voice had fallen to a whisper, face screwed up even as he tried his hardest to keep it empty. Louis was surprised he'd gotten this far without breaking down, honestly.

“So, um, around November, the year she died, she fell into a coma. I was the one that discovered she couldn't wake up.” Harry gripped almost too hard on his hair, and Louis would be annoyed if it didn't mean that he as listening. “And I – we took her to the hospital, and they sent us home with a hospital bed and some sort of machine that kept her alive at home. She was in our living room, comatose, for a good month like that. The girls watched television around her, we ate dinner around her, and Dan slept on the couch so he could be near her. That was really, um, tough. Especially on Lottie, I think. My oldest younger sister. She had to go to school every day with the fact that her mum was dying.”

“What about on you?” Harry asked.

“I'm the strong one. I keep things together.” He smiled wryly up at Harry, whose expression didn't match in the slightest. He burned as if he wanted to fight whatever cosmic force dropped Louis into his shitty life. Louis coughed; it came out watery. “And then, it was a week before my birthday, and Christmas, and I'd just gotten home from Christmas shopping. The girls were at school, Dan was at work – I had the morning off – and I called out to Mum, like I always did. She never answered, obviously. I go into the, uh, living room, expecting to hear the beeps that always told us she was still there, but there was nothing. All I heard was a – a flatline.” He froze at the memory pouring into his mind, this long, deafening tone.“She had died, and no one was e-even there with her.” Louis squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out the sounds of his own screams in a quiet house as he dialed nine-one-one while shaking her arm, crying out for her heartbeat. The entire memory rolled back in slow motion. Remembering it felt surreal, and like he wanted to puke, cry, and throw himself into oncoming traffic, all at once. The breath Louis inhaled was shaky at best.

“W-we didn't have Christmas that year. The day after was her f-funeral.” He clutched at Harry's shirt, praying, again, for the salt to recede. “All I remember was Lottie crying, and crying, and crying. I didn't even cry. I couldn't. I was s-so numb, after her. I'm still numb a lot. You see me numb.”

Louis could see the wheels cranking in Harry's head. Yeah, he was probably thinking, that would explain a lot.

“F-fast forward like, two months,” Louis forced off his tongue and choked throat into the strained scratch his voice had evolved into, “I'm getting even number. C-constantly on some sort of grief anesthesia. Can barely hear anything around me, can't even hear Zayn telling me to snap out of it, and that I'll lose the job he gave me if I keep my attitude up. I quit, hop on the plane, and fly to the loneliest place I can think of. And you found me.”

“I found you,” Harry said, pulling Louis closer. He just shuddered out a stuttering sob. “Thank you for telling me this. I know it's hard.” Louis blinked back more tears. He had cried so much that the energy wasn't really in him anymore, but his insides were still turned out and dumped on the wooden floor. “I'm sorry.”

“We should sleep now,” Louis said, exhaling shakily.

“That's a good idea,” Harry agreed. “And Louis?” Louis peered up at him. “I love you. Thank you.”

They both slept like logs until the sun pierced through clouds again.

 

 

The door slammed, something dropped on the floor of the cabin, and Louis peeked over the top of his book to find Harry grinning at him, nose and cheeks bright and rosy.

“Good first day?” Louis asked, flipping the page.

“Great, Mum,” Harry replied, not even bothering to take off his boots or outer layers before plopping down on Louis' feet, shrouded in a blanket dragged off the bed. “I'm feeling the energy. We should go hiking.”

Louis rolled his eyes, closing the book and leaning over to set it on the coffee table. “You're not going to be able to settle down until Christmas, we should not hike.”

Harry pouted his bottom lip and bugged out his eyes, leaning forward slightly so Louis could see his crimson cheeks in all their glorious detail. How was Harry this unfairly cute? He was supposed to be ugly, so Louis could turn him down and burrow into his hovel and stay there forever, warm and safe. Never mind what hoveling did to his mental state. What was really important was how Harry didn't have a license, nor a  _permit_ , to be so – so -

“Fine, we'll hike,” Louis huffed, throwing off the blanket and shuffling towards the pile of winter apparel in the corner. Harry made a noise of cheer, and jumped back up from the couch. Curse him, really.

They tumbled out of the cabin not five minutes later, plodding towards Harry's snowmobile to take it somewhere besides the valley mountains encasing Longyearbyen. Harry sped off along the shore, took a slow loop inland, and stopped in front of a mountain that would take them as high as kings.

“So,” Harry said, starting towards the mountain, “we don't have to go all the way up. I went here with Liam once, though, and the top is absolutely stunning.” Louis just hummed. He didn't really care; he would stop when Harry's legs gave out, then leave him on the mountainside because Louis is not about heavy lifting. “You should meet Liam sometime.”

“Is he coming back for this year?”

“Yeah,” Harry nodded, jumping from frosted rock to frosted rock. “Did I ever tell you about him? He's a cool guy.”

“Mentioned once or twice,” Louis replied, trailing not far behind.

“Liam's my friend here. Well, there's Perrie and everyone, but I dormed with Liam for a little while, and he's nice. A little stuck up, but nice.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. He studies glaciology. Wicked cool.”

Harry kept chattering, filling the air as they hiked and squinted into the descending sun. September meant the height of the midnight sun had long passed, and the ball burning the snow away drifted closer and closer to the foggy horizon.

“... and then I met Niall, he's the owner of  _Huset-_ ”

“Niall? I've met him.”

“Yeah? Oh, right, he's the real estate guy, too! I love him, he's awesome. Him and his signature Pepto Bismol jacket.”

Louis let out a small laugh, shaking his head as he remembered the pink parka, blinding against the snow. It truly was award winning.

“Anyway, that's like, the British posse of Svalbard. They all kind of group together, Niall and Perrie and Liam and everyone. Just like the Norwegians to the Norwegians, and the Russians to the Russians. Liam was telling me that we should get together someday this year. It's his last year at UNIS and he told me he'd like to meet you.”

“You told him about me?”

Harry flashed a smile, with just a hint of nerves. “Of course. Why wouldn't I?” Louis blushed something fierce, biting back a smile and turning into the sunlight. “If I met God, I'd probably accidentally force him into half an hour of listening to me talk about you, Louis.” That – that was.

“What a sad thing to talk about,” Louis said, attempting to squish the warmth rising up his throat with deprecation. It usually worked. Harry threw him a frown and said “You're a wonderful thing, Louis, don't forget that.” It didn't work.

Halfway through the hike, Harry fell quiet, swinging his arms with every step and tilting his chin into the relaxing wind sweeping by. The weather of Svalbard today proved a gorgeous calm, thank the lord.

“I took my sister up here when she came over last summer,” he said softly. “I think she didn't like the outdoorsy thing.”

“Neither did I, before Svalbard,” Louis said, kicking a pebble across the thin later of white powder. Harry smiled serenely.

“I'm glad you warmed up to it.”

“More like you forced me to like it.”

“Your sarcastic tone doesn't phase me. You like it on your own accord, and I'm happy to have someone to adventure with. Couldn't ask for anyone more lovely.”

“Compliment me more and I turn around just like your sister.”

“Sorry, can't help it.” Harry threw a wink over his shoulder. “Besides, she went to all the way to the end with me. She might have hated it, but she endures some things for me, at least.”

Louis scoffed. Lottie wouldn't have put up with this shit; anywhere outside of Longyearbyen is void of cell reception.

“Lucky sister,” he said. Harry fell back, then, into pace beside Louis, only inches apart as they trekked up the mountain.

“Tell me about yours,” Harry asked, voice little more than a breath. Like he was afraid the question might drag a nail up Louis' chest.

Louis pursed his lips. He didn't get to talk about them often with other people, but he was terribly proud to call all of them his siblings.

“I have four,” he began, as Harry took his hand and swung their fingers between them. Not the most ideal idea for hiking, but the heat from their gloves mingled something lovely. “The oldest is Lottie, she's around sixteen. Felicite is only a few years younger than her. And the twins, Phoebe and Daisy, are around ten.”

“They sound like a handful,” Harry commented.

“Trust me, they are,” Louis agreed, “but they're so cute you have to love them.”

“Gemma's not the same way, sadly,” Harry said, although the mischievous grin and the fact that she had been quite gorgeous in the picture Louis saw gave Harry away. Louis rolled his eyes and smiled. “What are they like?”

“Lottie can be a brat, but her and I are like, a proper team. If you asked her, she would tell you that she's my favorite sibling. She likes girly stuff and boy bands, though, so.”

“What's wrong with that? I love boy bands. I vote for them every year on The X Factor,” Harry cried, slapping his spare hand over his chest. Louis had to cackle, and his chest hurt hurt thinking about how well they would get along.

“Felicite is also pretty girly, but she'd love Svalbard. She likes sports and rough housing and stuff. I'd let her play rugby if it didn't mean I'd have to be afraid for her life. And then Phoebe and Daisy, they're like carbon copies of each other. If you met them, Harry, I swear it'd take you a week to figure out which one is which. They're both cute and blonde, and they coordinate outfits so they force me to buy them two of everything. I thought they'd grow out of it years ago.”

“Oh my god, they're geniuses.”

“They're little menaces, that's what they are. Last year, I got a call from the school principal asking if I knew that they switched places in classes. I found out that Daisy was better at Math, and Phoebe was better at English, so they would switch on class days and get each other A's.”

“Nope, that's genius. That is pure amazing. The next time you see them, tell them they should become government spies and trip so many bad guys up someone will make a movie about them.”

Louis shook his head, grinning as he stared at the sky. “Sometimes, I don't even know what goes on in your head, Styles.”

“I'm thinking that you have one bad ass, strong family,” Harry replied, squeezing his fingers. His voice brimmed with syrupy sincerity, and it was the first time he felt happy thinking about his sisters since he stumbled off a plane into the one-runway airport of Svalbard.

“I think they would love your hair,” he said. “They'd put little plastic clips in it and try to braid it. I hope you're okay with losing your hair to knots.” Too late, Louis realized the implication of his words, but Harry grinned maniacally, so he couldn't bring himself to care.

“I've always loved kids,” Harry reassured. “If they're anything like you, I'll love them just as well.”

“You're going to have to get through the school year first, then,” Louis said, unwinding their hands and stuffing his into his jacket pocket. He thought for a second he saw Harry's constant smile slip.

Harry didn't answer for a minute, concentrating on maneuvering around the steadily steeper slope. “I have another trip next week,” he said, finally, and Louis ignored his heart dropping. “The yearly safety instruction trip. And after that, I have to go up to Barentsburg again and study stuff. We're going out to sea, too, to study marine populations.”

Louis' mouth went dry. “That sounds like a lot.”

“I know. They told me that the farther you get, the more on hands stuff you go on. Seems like a lot of work to me.”

“That's what you came here for, though, right?” He willed the sense of dread clawing at his esophagus. “To do on hands.”

Harry paused, biting his lip and peering off into the vast distance. “I guess so, yeah.”

Louis didn't want to dwell on it. As Harry opened his mouth again, Louis took his hand and sprinted, as best as someone can on the side of a mountain, towards the finish line.

So, September was good. As the sun swam closer to the horizon, Louis tamped down everything, and September was good.

 

 

Louis could feel himself drifting. His nose was stuck in his book, but the words blurred before his eyes and the only reason he flipped pages was to give the illusion of someone interested in Bryant instead of a possible never-ending nap. Louis had gotten good at pretending.

From the other end of the sofa, Harry let out a stressed groan, erasing half the page before scratching down more numbers. He'd been complaining the entire night about a certain set of problems assigned to him, some complex equations the teacher apparently gave just for kicks, before they really got into things. It left Harry in a tailspin trying to unravel them, and his mood wasn't affecting Louis well either.

“Alright there?” Louis asked, nudging his cold toes against his thigh.

“Yeah, it's just. I don't know. Difficult,” he huffed, jabbing buttons on the calculator.

Louis nodded, nudging him in what he hoped was a comforting way, and willed the words to blink back into focus.

After ten minutes, Harry slammed the notebook shut and called it quits, settling into the back of the sofa. “Why did I ever get into STEM,” he complained, sighing.

“Because you despise rhyme and meter,” Louis replied.

“ _My sweet nightingale, my rose, your eyes like the stars,_ ” Harry sang, letting his head roll on the cushion to face Louis.

“What's that from?”

“Mm, totally forgot. Just thought it was pretty. See, I can remember poetic things too,” he said, poking Louis.

Louis shook his head fondly, and they fell into silence again, Harry slipping in and out of consciousness as Louis fingered past pages and pages of the book. He thought maybe he could attribute his uninterest in the fact that he'd read the book fifty-seven times.

Harry traced nonsensical shapes into the fabric over Louis' legs.

“I've got another trip next week,” Harry said, voice failing with sleep. Louis glanced up from the page to meet Harry's eyes, little tired slits.

“How long?” Louis asked.

“Only a few days.”

“Alright then.” He knew it was stupid – like, beyond laughable and ludicrous – but every time Harry left for a trip, the cabin emptied out just a tiny bit more.

“But after that, Liam asked for you to join everyone at the bar,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Alcohol?”

“Yup.”

“I'm okay with it,” Louis assented, throwing Harry a small smile. Harry grinned back, rubbing his eyes.

“More science tomorrow,” he mumbled, hauling himself from the sofa. “Sleep now.”

Louis had to agree, setting the book on the table. As Harry shuffled across the floor, he thought about how lonely that first week had felt. All he could pick out of his mind was how, whenever Harry left for a week, he could pull bits and pieces of those two or three months, hold them up to the swinging light, and swallow them again. They slid down like glass shards, and dissolved into the nothing that often accompanied hollow nights and numb fingers.

October, though more worn than September, was good.

 

 

The thickening layer of snow crunched underfoot as Harry and Louis made their way up the path to  _Huset._ Wind chilled their cheeks, their breaths came out in foggy puffs, and Louis had never been more glad to enter a pub in his entire life.

Immediately upon Harry pushing open the pub door, a yell of cheer rose from the foyer. Louis' eyes were drawn to Niall, blonde hair fluffed and eyes wild, grinning like mad as he waved at the new arrivals. Instantly, Louis knew that today was a great, well functioning day.

“What's up, lads!” Niall greeted, clapping both of them on the back. “Glad to see you guys again! And you especially, Louis! The cabin suiting you well, I reckon?”

Louis mustered up a smile for the bright boy. “Yeah, awesome, thank you.”

Niall kept on beaming, his constantly ecstatic mood infectious to all corners of the room.

“You can leave your shoes over there,” he said, pointing to the cubby hole shelf against the wall. “And jackets go over there. Then join us in the bar! We're trying to get Liam to do shots.” His wicked expression mirrored one Louis sometimes saw on Harry, and yeah, he could tell why they became friends.

 _Huset,_  besides being the northernmost pub in the world, was also the northernmost gourmet restaurant, and boasted the world's northernmost, and one of Europe's largest, wine cellars and beer selection. With over 20,000 wines and a variety of other alcohols, Louis hoped he got to watch this Liam get sloshed by seven pm.

"This way," Harry said, taking Louis' forearm and leading him through the foyer to a set of stairs leading down to the pub. Inside, Perrie, the girl with purple hair, clung to another girl with relatively normal brown hair. Some guys Harry never mentioned relaxed at the bar counter, and Niall lined up shot glasses for a stocky, bearded man that looked like he fit the name Liam.

As soon as they came into view, the whole bar whipped around to face them, and everyone went up in cheers, just like Niall. For a place so cold and dreary, Louis thought, they sure could get excited about nobodies mooching off their alcohol. Well, Harry didn't really qualify for a nobody.

"Harry!" Probably Liam cried. "Niall is trying to force me into buying his alcohol."

“I'm doing no such thing,” the blonde cackled, shoving one of the glasses forward. Probably Liam scrunched his nose and pushed it back into the line.

“Hello, Louis!” Perrie called, waving them both into the bar. “Long time, no see. Saskia misses you.”

Louis gave her a smile and a small wave back. “Hi.” He really didn't know what else to tell her. It was awkward, to say the least.

Thankfully, Harry knew how to converse with the public. “No hello for me, then?” Perrie rolled her eyes and swatted her hand, turning back to the girl on her waist.

“You're Louis,” Probably Liam asked, standing up from the table and holding out a hand for a shake. Louis took it, mostly because he didn't know what else to do.

“Yeah,” Louis said. “And you're Liam?”

“The one and only,” the lumberjack answered. “Harry here won't shut up about you.”

Louis glanced quizzically at Harry, whose cheeks were not that rosy on the way in. “Oh, really? What does he say?”

“Just that you're cute, and he thinks your-” Harry made a strangled noise “- sense of adventure is amazing.”

“Well, that's nothing he doesn't tell me already.”

Liam cocked an eyebrow and grinned wickedly. “Good to know.” Slapping Louis' shoulder, he fell back into his seat and crossed his socked feet on top of the table, raising one of the shot glasses. “You better reimburse me for these.”

“Not a chance in hell,” Niall threw back.

“It was worth a shot,” he shrugged. “To Louis!” Liam winked and downed the contents. Louis didn't know what to think of the guy.

Harry placed a hand on the small of Louis' back and guided him towards the wooden bar counter on their right. They took two of the old style stools, probably dating back to the origin of Longyearbyen.

“Louis, this is Jade,” Perrie said, jostling the girl at her waist. Jade flashed him a pearly smile.

“And that's Ed and Nick,” Harry supplied, pointing to the ginger guy and extremely tall dude sparring at a pool table nicked straight from the 70's. It matched the wooden paneling lining the walls, and the murky green carpet, as if the bar was the only place in the building Niall couldn't be arsed to renovate. The décor gave off a homey vibe; Louis greatly appreciated it.

“Seems like a fun bunch,” Louis said.

“Ed's new,” Harry replied, “but he's really cool. Plays the guitar, like Niall.”

“What doesn't Niall do?”

“I don't clean the dishes,” Niall called from the table, trying to force a second shot down Liam's throat. “That's what I have employees for.”

The entire room laughed, and Louis felt the warmth tingle his veins.

“Harry!” Nick yelled, leaning clumsily on the pool table. “You should play with us.”

“Only if I do,” Liam said, sliding the multiple shot glasses back towards Niall and practically flying out of the chair to join them. Niall threw his head back in exasperation, heaving himself from his seat and waltzing over to Louis at the bar.

“You want a beer, mate?” he asked.

“Um, sure, yeah,” Louis nodded, feeling more or less awkward now that Harry had left to participate in manly activities.

Niall rounded the bar and fished out two beers, handing one to Louis. He came back around, settling in the stool Harry had left.

“So, you liking Svalbard?”

“Yeah,” Louis answered honestly. “Love it here.”

“You know, I didn't expect you to stay so long.”

“Me either.” And really, he didn't. He'd only rented the rifle for three months, and how long has it been? Long enough for his sisters to start the new school year without him. Long enough for the sun to rise and set again. “But, you know, things happen.” His gaze definitely didn't wander over to Harry, shaking out his hair as he giggled at something Nick probably said.

“I get you,” Niall agreed between slugs. “I never meant to buy the bar. But it's just so gorgeous here, you know?” Oh, Louis knew. “The mountains, the sea, even the ten bloody feet of snow. Winter is ethereal, and summers are just breathtaking.”

Louis hummed in understanding. “I like the glaciers.”

“Don't even get me started on the glaciers! How does ice even get that blue? I don't understand it. Liam here's explained it to me billions of times, but I just won't have it.” Louis had to giggle at Niall's exaggerated hand gestures; they reminded him of himself before – before. “I think if you can be in love with a place, then this island is it for me.”

Niall smiled serenely out the thick windows to the dying sun, floating just above the horizon. Its mellow rays outlined the mountains in the distance, their dark figures stark against the soft light. Louis wasn't watching the outside. He let his gaze rest on Harry again, his eyes sparkling in the bar light. Harry, his own little light, stronger than any sun of any Arctic archipelago. Even his dimples shone, deep craters that Louis wanted to dig his fingers into all the time, just to feel the warmth.

“I heard this quote, once,” Niall said, voice breaking through the Harry-fog, “by a man named Amir Kuhsrau. He was a scholar, or something.” The blonde leaned forward, staring contently out the dim window. “' _If there is a paradise on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here._ '” He placed his beer bottle gently on the counter. “I think Svalbard is my own little paradise.”

Harry poked a pool ball into a pocket, and threw his arms up with a cheer. Yeah, Louis thought. A paradise.

“One day I'll leave,” Niall sighed, “but for right now, Svalbard is my one and only.”

As Harry grinned around the pool table, attempting to twirl his pool stick, he caught Louis' eye, and flashed a wink. It took a moment before Louis remembered how to smile back.

Perrie leaned forward and batted his arm, shaking him out of his reverie. For a moment, he blinked in disorientation, until he could pick out her dancing blue eyes.

“Hey, Louis,” she began, “we were thinking of going ice caving this weekend. Would you and Harry like to go with us?”

Louis only had to mull it over for a moment until he pictured Harry's excited voice, his bouncing curls.

“That would be lovely,” he assented, and Perrie's face split into a wide grin.

“Great! You'll like it a lot, I promise.”

“I know I will,” Louis said. Ice caving. How adventurous.

Perrie's eyes moved past Louis to Niall, and she launched into a complaint about a certain teacher, or whatever. Louis wasn't really listening anyway. Harry, having just won the game – by some sort of miracle, probably – was wiggling his hips in a jig, whooping as the others groaned in shame.

Sometimes, when he tumbled inside after a long day, Harry tried to shake snow from the tip of his nose. Other times, he purposefully rolled on the ground and sung that damn snow man song from the Disney film  _Frozen._  The snow never really fazed him. He worked with it, loved it, blended in and stood out all at once. He was a bright spot in it all, and when Louis needed it, cooled him down and soothed him. Paradise, Louis thought, was a little something like that.

 

 

“We're here.”

“Where are we?”

“Here.”

Louis grasped blindly for Harry's gloved hand and shimmied off the snow mobile. They were... somewhere. Somewhere far, and dark, and coated in a fresh blanket of white. Perrie's purple hair acted as a beacon in the winter wonderland, swishing whilst she unpacked gear from the back of her own snow mobile, and Liam stomped around, peering into the fluff as if looking for. Something.

Harry came up behind him, one hand resting on his back and the other holding out the gear belt Louis was to snap onto his waist. Perrie handed out all their crampons and ice picks, briefly explaining how to put the crampons on while Louis still wondered what the fuck they were doing in the middle of a white wasteland.

“Found it!” Liam called, waving them over to what looked like another patch of white, but as Louis shuffled closer, the land dipped and revealed a small opening. Liam shone his torch inside, and a thin crevice of ice stared right back at them. Oh. Sick.

Perrie interrupted the staring fest to hand all of them helmets and head torches, and Louis set about actually strapping on all his gear. There was the head torch, helmet, ice screws, crampons, knee pads, ice axe... All good to go. Well, Perrie had to help him slip on the crampons, but other than that, good to go.

When they were all geared up, Liam pressed a stake through the layers of snow tied a rope to it. With the rope in hand, he lowered himself, step by step, into the opening of the ice cave. Perrie went next, following the same rope pattern.

“You go before me,” Harry offered.

“It feels like lowering myself to my death,” Louis said, but he went down anyway. First, hands firmly on the thick rope. He concentrated on stepping one foot behind the other without slipping, until the snow petered off into just slabs of ice, and the ice leveled so Louis could stand upright without the help of the rope, even though it was a nice reassurance to hold onto. Finally, Louis let himself relax and look around. And. Holy shit.

The ice pressed down on all four sides, leaving only inches of space on either side of Louis. In their torch lights, the opaque, intense light blue glistened, filled with different patterns of layers and shapes and all sorts of things.

Harry arrived soon, his curly hair billowing under the tight helmet. “Let's go farther down,” he said, and Louis wasn't one to deny that. He could see Perrie's bright head a little farther down, past a steep incline farther into the earth, and grabbed the rope to follow her. Step by careful step, Louis reached another plateau where Liam and Perrie both rested, perched on a block of ice that made a perfect stool in the middle of a fucking cave.

“Isn't this the greatest thing ever?” Liam's voice echoed, grinning wistfully at all the ice surrounding them. Louis thought that if it fell and crushed them now, no one would find them for days. Liam, the glaciology student he was, was probably admiring how one ice block to the left of them held swirling patterns, unpredictable to the mere public. Suddenly, he eased off of the makeshift bench and pointed at a strange ice fixture in front of him. “Do you see that?”

“Yeah,” Louis said. It looked like a thinner sheet, but it coated most of that wall.

“Tap it with an ice screw.”

Obediently, Louis unhooked one of the ice screws from his belt and climbed over to Liam. When he tapped it against the ice, it produced a booming hollow sound, unlike anything Louis might have suspected.

“Damn.”

“I know, right? And farther into the cave, there's cooler things to show. Here, come along.” Liam immediately disappeared into another crevice, and Louis had no choice but to follow. Again, he grabbed the rope and carefully scooted along the walls of the cave, using his ice axe when handy but mostly getting by with maneuvering with his hands. Louis could hear the other two follow them, all wordlessly admiring the wondrous structure that encased them.

When Louis caught up with Liam, they faced a different ice structure. This time, the roof above them glistened with rows and rows of neatly organized crystals. For a moment, Louis could only stare in aw at the perfectly straight lines of crystal bunches, reminding him of a carefully organized vegetable field.

“Dripping water is one of the world's greatest artists,” Liam sighed, delicately grazing the tips of his gloves over the edges of the crystal bunches. Where they hit, the crystals came apart, clattering to the floor of the cave. The sounds echoed all around them. Louis couldn't help but grin at it.

“Over there, too, is something else,” Liam continued, pointing into the corner of their part of the crevice. There, even longer dripping water sculptures protruded from the ceiling of the cave. They looked more akin to something Louis could find dripping off the side of the cabin. It made the whole thing feel a little less alien, but honestly, the alien he didn't mind.

The long, sword-like stalactites hung in a large group, crowding everything else around it. Still, Liam persevered past them, ducking below to avoid chopping them off and shimmying past, deeper into the abyss.

“How far can he go?” Louis asked incredulously, turning back to ask the question to the other two. They both laughed and shook their heads.

“Liam always does this,” Perrie shrugged. “It's his profession. I'm pretty sure he would live in an ice cave if he had the means to.”

Louis chuckled, wondering whether he should pull back. This far down, the climb was getting difficult. Moving from one part of the cave to another required a lot of skillful bending, twisting, and establishing weird shapes with your legs to wiggle your way into a new spot. Still, Louis found himself enjoying the strenuous hike, and he figured he could do Liam a favor and continue on. So he did, carefully sticking his crampons in strategic places and staring wide eyed and the beautiful ice surrounding him at the same time. It proved to be quite a job.

Fifteen minutes later, Liam rested on another pseudo bench, legs splayed out in front of him and eyes tracing patterns in the waves above him.

“This,” he declared when they all comfortably joined him. “Is where we eat lunch.”

Louis huffed a small laugh. “You're joking, right?”

“No...?” Liam gave him a confused look before shrugging off his backpack and pulling out four differently colored thermoses from inside of it.

“Oh! Okay. That's really cool.”

“Right? That's what I thought. Meals in an ice cave are always a surreal experience.”

Louis smiled, nodding a thank you as Liam handed him his pink thermos. Harry unscrewed the cap of his neon green one, closing his eyes and sniffing the bottle.

“Mm, microwave ramen,” he said.

“Hey, I can't afford much!” Liam cried, slapping Harry's arm. Harry cackled in response.

“I'll have you know that I love microwave ramen,” Harry said between sips. “It's one of my favorite meals. So thank you, Chef Liam, for the wonderful ice cave tour with complimentary dinner.”

“I say it tastes like shit,” Perrie said, though she took a sip anyway, since there was actually nothing else to eat in a cave. “What about you, Louis?”

Louis looked up from his cup, hot and pressed to his lips. He pretended to ponder the thought for a moment, though in reality, Top Ramen had been his dinner for two years straight at one point. “The sogginess of the noodles contrasts really well with the harsh taste of the beef. Also, I love myself some fake vegetables. All in all, a ten out of ten.”

For a moment, his company was stunned by the joke. When did this tiny guy make jokes? A second later, Liam burst out giggling, spluttering into his thermos, and Harry and Perrie threw their heads back in laughter.

“That was great!” Liam applauded, raising his thermos. Louis beamed at all of them smiling back at him. “You should write Yelp! reviews.”

“I try my best.” Louis bowed his head in thanks.

Louis finished his thermos in relative silence, listening to the banter between Perrie and Liam and Harry. They chatted about how some trip they took up north related to this, on a science level Louis didn't totally understand. But it was nice hearing them talk while his gaze drifted around the cave, taking in the different layers of ice and the way it shimmered underneath the torchlight.

At one point, Harry rested a hand on his back, catching his attention. His cheeks and nose shone pink and glossy red, and the smile on his lips made Louis' stomach take a tumble.

“Good?” Harry asked quietly, like it was just the two of them.

“Good,” Louis replied with a nod, looking at Harry over the rim of the bottle. And really, he was only half lying.

 

 

Louis' eyes cracked open. It was somewhere around two am - although the darkened sky could never tell you the time – and a faint blue light lit up the space just next to the bed. Wait. That wasn't the sun. There was no sun. Louis squinted as the cranks in his mind wheezed, waiting a full thirty seconds before realizing that, huh, his phone screen lit up exactly like that. His – the weariness faded quickly, and Louis leaned over the edge of the bed way faster than he originally intended.

It took a moment to adjust to the faint light, but eventually he could make out several mail icons on the screen.  _Dan Deakin... Dan Deakin... Dan Deakin..._ All from one person. Picking up the cell, Louis shuffled onto his elbows on the bed and glanced over to make sure Harry was still dead to the world. He was; thank the God who made him the heaviest sleeper in the world. Louis drew his attention back to the screen and swiped to read one of the messages.

_Louis... I know you probably won't read this. I just wanted to let you know that the girls have been wondering how you're doing. They miss you. Lottie says answer your messages. I miss you, too, and have been wondering when you're coming home. It would be lovely to have you back._

_With love, Dan_

Louis sighed, rubbing his eyes and staring for a few moments before archiving the message. He clicked on one more.

 _Louis... How are you doing? How is Svalbard? I heard that it's terribly cold up there. It's snowing here as well, but I can't imagine what it must be like up in the Arctic Circle. I hope you're doing well. There must be some lovely people._ \- Louis smiled at that. Yeah, lovely indeed. -  _Anyway, I've just messaged because I'm worried about the bank balance. I don't have access to your account, but if you're planning on staying any longer, please check your balance to see if everything is alright. I know you said you wanted to go to university at some point._

_The girls ask about you constantly. Daisy keeps asking me for help on her grammar sheets, but I have to tell her to Google all the answers. Clearly, I'm not the parent you can be, lol._

_All the love, Dan_

Louis' throat tightened at the thought of his girls. He always did help Daisy with her grammar. But they were probably doing fine, anyway. Louis didn't need to be there to help them. Dan loved the girls, and Louis was lucky to have him there.

Shaking the e-mail from his head, Louis archived that one as well. He didn't want to read any more, but now he was wide awake, and Harry still snored away beside him. Louis spied the message app, lit up with several notifications. But the temptation just wasn't there. He'd already read e-mails – more than he'd done in the past several months. The anxiety that gnawed at his throat and stomach wasn't worth opening just one of them.

Louis glanced once more at Harry, locked the phone, and laid it gently back down beside the bed. Despite knowing he wouldn't succumb to the lull of sleep for at least another two hours, he dug back under the covers and pressed his nose into Harry's shoulder. Tomorrow, he would leave for another week long trip, so tonight Louis would have to grab everything he could of his warmth to last him the seven days. There was never enough anyway, but at least something was better than nothing.

 

 

Time passed by in Svalbard in terms of With Harry, and Without Harry. Louis couldn't tell you much interesting about Without Harry. There was a bed, an empty kitchen cabinet – resulting in an uneventful trip to the market for an overpriced box of cereal and milk -, and the books on his shelf. He'd picked up a different copy off the shelf; was that interesting? The title read  _Mrs. Mike_ , and the pages still held that new book smell. Like all the other novels, Louis had read  _Mrs. Mike_ before, but only once, and the only reason he'd dropped it in his bag was because the setting of the novel was the Yukon. A moment of inspiration from the blinding white landscape of Svalbard itself.

Anyway, Without Harry was... okay. Like always, Louis braced himself for the pit of despair that accompanied his days alone, but each time, the bonelessness itself stood less and less at the forefront of his mind. He even made himself tea.

With Harry began again at 8 pm exactly a week later. The cabin was swathed in darkness, lit only by the usual swinging lick of light from the kitchen alcove, and Louis' glasses slid off his nose as his eyes skidded listlessly across the pages of his book. The lack of fire froze his fingers to the paper, but he still couldn't really bring himself to care.

In late evening, somewhere between Boston and the Yukon, Harry blew through the door of the cabin. A flurry of snow burst onto the wooden floor, and Harry himself huffed as he shook more snow off his winter suit. The rest melted on his cheeks, shining in the meager kitchen light. Harry carried a large backpack and a dimple-to-dimple grin as he took in Louis, there as always.

“I'm back,” he said simply, throwing his arms up.

“Hello to you, too,” Louis replied, closing the book and giving his own smile. It wasn't as bright, but Harry knew what he was like after a trip.

Harry tossed the bag onto the couch and began shucking his clothes, shimmying out of the freezing coats and extra pants and boots and socks and piling them in the corner already dominated by Louis' winter clothes. He went immediately into the kitchen to brew a cup of tea. Louis just watched as Harry blinked serenely from the kettle to Louis.

“Tired?”

“Incredibly,” Harry sighed, though with a small smile on his face. “The trip was fun. Lots of sample taking, but two days into it we got caught in the middle of a herd of reindeer, and today we saw two polar bears. 't was pretty cool.” His eyes danced as he dropped a tea bag into a cup and shuffled his way over to the bed. “I wish you'd been there.”

Louis just shrugged. He ignored the flash of sadness in favor of watching Harry sip his tea. He looked terribly cute, wide eyes crinkling above the rim of the cup.

“Have work to do?”

The easy grin slipped off his face and he groaned. “Yeah, but I don't want to do any of it. I've just spent the week in a cabin that didn't even have a stove; I don't know how they expect me to go to regular class tomorrow morning.”

Harry peered around the cabin. He eyed Louis' mussed hair, the light, and the dark hole of Louis' own fire stove. “Speaking of,” he said, and held up his index finger before hopping off the bed and into his boots. Harry only left for a second before returning with logs under both arms. Dumping a few on the floor, he threw the rest in and tossed a lit match. In a few minutes, the fire would be blazing, and Louis' cheeks might even be warmer than they currently were, thanks to the way Harry plopped down on the bed again with a loud, exaggerated sigh.

“That's better,” he yawned.

“You should go to sleep,” Louis hummed, but Harry only shook his head and kicked off his boots again.

“I haven't seen you in a week, I'm not just gonna fall asleep on you,” he protested. Honestly, Louis felt the same way. “Let's watch a movie.”

Louis could count the amount of times he'd used his laptop in Svalbard on one hand, but he dug it out from under the bed for Harry. At least last time he had made sure to turn off the e-mail notification option and erased everything on his internet, so there's that.

“I only have one movie,” Louis said, pulling out the lonely copy along with the laptop.

“ _Grease_?”

“Hey, it's my favorite. And I didn't need Zayn keeping it for who knows how long.  _Grease_  is a classic.”

“Slow down,” Harry teased, cocking an eyebrow and laughing. “But is  _Grease_  a classic, or a cliché?”

“Says the hipster whose favorite movie is  _Love Actually_ ,” Louis scoffed. He shoved Harry against the wall and shuffled in closer, laying the laptop across both their laps.

“Maybe we're both cliches,” Harry said. “But you know I love a good cliché.”

Louis rolled his eyes and suppressed a smile as he popped the disc into the device.

As the opening sequence rolled onto the screen, they settled into each other. Louis rested his head against Harry's shoulder, though he tried his hardest to stay attuned to the screen, seeing as it really was his favorite movie. What can he say? A little John Travolta never hurt anybody. He could definitely attempt to pay attention to that.

“We're not cliches,” Harry said suddenly. Louis twisted to look at him curiously, finding Harry already staring at him, deep in thought. “I mean, there are no cliches in Svalbard. It's an icebox. Cliches usually start in a small American town.”

“I don't know where you're going with that.”

“No, I was just,” he shrugged, “thinking. Anyway, I would look terrible with Danny Zuko's hair.”

“You would never be able to gel it that way, but it would still be cute,” Louis said. Really, Harry would look cute doing anything.

“You would be cute with it. Definitely.”

Louis turned away so Harry couldn't see how deeply he was blushing, but he burrowed just a little closer. “I hope that isn't a comment to how unkempt my hair is.”

“Not at all. I think it's cute like this, too.” Harry emphasized his statement by carding his fingers through Louis' fringe, and Louis had to try his hardest not to nudge into the touch.

They watched a good portion of the movie in comfortable silence, half falling asleep on each other, half singing along atrociously to the musical numbers. Apparently, Harry's American accent was laughably bad, but Louis' was worse.

By the time the gang arrived at the riverbed for the drag race, Harry was snoring softly into the crook of Louis' neck, and Louis himself felt the tug of sleep pulling at his eyelids. It was less the late time and more how mind numbingly comfortable and warm being cuddled up to Harry was. Louis fought off the lingering fingers of slumber in favor of staring lazily at Harry. His long eyelashes fanned his cheeks, and his stupid cute mouth hung open in the perpetual beginning of a yawn, soft air whooshingin and out. The corners of his lips lifted even in his sleep, and his arms practically latched onto Louis like an octopus. God, he was so. So incredible. Adorable. Wonderful. He couldn't find words in his daze, but he imagined that he wouldn't be able to find them even if he was more alert than any time in the last months ever. Harry's curls caressed over his forehead; Louis wanted to brush them away and kiss the spot there. As cars screeched across the screen, he wanted to kiss Harry. So badly.

The moment, really, was as perfect as it was going to get. In the middle of snow flurries and the isolation of Svalbard, Louis was able to be curled up in a warm bed with a good movie and a boy who was otherworldly. And he just. He loved him.

He loved him.

Oh god, did he love him.

At the thought, Louis jolted awake, widening his eyes as he was unable to tear his gaze off Harry's eyelashes. Oh my god. He loved him.

Louis paused the movie. For a good minute, he stared at the screen, partly in shock, partly also in shock over how it wasn't a shock at all. Because he wasn't. In shock, that is. That he loved him, it felt so natural. It didn't surprise him at all that his heart ached over the best thing Svalbard could have ever given him. He  _loved_ him, like he loved absolutely no one else in the world.

As the words  _I love him, I love him_ rang through his mind like Big Ben at the 46th hour, Louis powered off the laptop and slid it under the bed. For only a minute, he slipped from under the covers to stoke the dying flames and put in the last blocks of wood. Harry shifted in his sleep and grabbed blindly at the space Louis had occupied, pouting when he couldn't find anything. All Louis could do was watch in awe. Harry was like a puppy. A puppy that Louis loved.

Once the fire sprang up to proper life, Louis climbed back under the covers, fitting himself into the Louis-shaped space he'd just left. Harry sighed in content, throwing an arm over his waist. They fit perfectly, like two puzzle pieces, Louis couldn't help but notice.

Despite his thoughts reeling the same three words over and over and over again, Louis felt sleep drag at him again, and he let himself succumb to it as Harry huffed deep breaths into his neck.

 

 

_Louis blinked at the green leaves that swung over his head. They were just out of reach, something Louis could stretch his fingers toward, but never really grasp. Instead, he threaded his fingers through the blonde head on his stomach, watching the leaves sway and pattern his skin with the sun above them._

_“Louis,” his mother said, her laugh ringing into his ears. “You tell this part better than me. How did you get in the lake again?”_

_Louis chuckled and rolled his eyes. Never would he tell this story again. It was traumatizing enough as it was. He shook his head and went to protest, but his mother went on – not before mocking his expression back at him._

_“So they were pond geese, Fizz,” she began, flashing a smile -_

_“Come home.”_

_Louis' head shot up from the grass. There was a figure at the edge of the garden. Dan looked frantically on the scene. How did he -“Come home, come home. Louis, you have to -”_

_Louis looked from Dan to his mother, to Dan, then to his mother. Something was wrong. Why was his mother here? She's not supposed to be. She's dead. She's dead._

_“Come home._ Come home.  _Come home.”_

Louis coughed awake. He grasped at the blankets, desperately trying to push himself up, get air. The entire cabin was shrouded in dark, and as he whipped around wildly, he couldn't make out a single thing. Only the pulsing beat of his heart in his chest.

Finally, he shoved away the blankets - and an arm, he noticed belatedly – and swung his legs over the edge. Louis' breath escaped him, and he spent a minute reminding himself that Dan wasn't in Svalbard, and he didn't have a mother. There were no trees in an ice box. Breath in, breath out, breath in, breath out.

As Louis struggled to control his breathing, Harry shuffled around behind him. Louis felt guilty for waking him up.

“Louis,” Harry mumbled, dragging a gentle hand down his back. “Louis, you okay?”

“Y-yeah,” Louis breathed, nodding in jerks. He focused on Harry's massaging hand. “Just, um, a bad dream.”

“Positive?”

“Uh, yeah.” Louis could picture Dan so clearly, waving his arms and yelling at him,  _come home._

“Okay.” Harry took his hand away. “Come back?”

Louis stared at Harry's sleepy eyes, holding his arms wide for Louis to join in and snuggle. He still felt panic pushing up his throat, so he shook his head. “In a moment.”

“Mkay,” Harry said, smiling softly and blinking. “I'm always here for you.”

Again, Louis nodded, this time slowly. He turned away, gazing at the cabin wall before him. Louis stayed like that, frozen, for ten minutes, until he could lie down stiffly, arms by his sides. Harry wrapped an arm around him, pulling Louis closer in the warm cocoon, but Louis' head swum with thoughts that would not let him sleep again tonight.

 

 

Louis couldn't move. He couldn't move. Harry had left a few hours earlier, and try as he might, Louis couldn't lift a finger beyond the choke hold on his throat. Well, it was a metaphorical choke hold, but as Louis stared into the vast darkness of the cabin roof, he couldn't help but think that he was actually choking. It certainly felt like it. Like the walls were closing in, like his fatigue was catching up to him, like everything okay was there but just out of reach, and Louis didn't know how he could catch it. His red rimmed eyes darted frantically around the room, pleading for something, anything, to fall to his feet and assure him that his mother was alive.

But she wasn't. Not for an entire year.

He'd meant to tell Harry, but when he barged in this morning with the thick winter snow, he noticed how paralyzed Louis sat, kissed his forehead, and told him he didn't need to say anything. And where there's a chance to suppress emotion and let it strangle him, Louis will take it. Harry read poetry, worked on his homework, and hugged him on more than one occasion. Constantly, Louis wanted to scream and cry,  _today she is dead for a whole year,_  but nothing came out. Nothing but gasps and tears. Nothing Louis wanted Harry to see, and nothing he could say out loud.

Now, it was night time. Or day time, Louis couldn't tell – a metaphor for his life, really.

Louis lolled his head to stare at the opposite cabin wall. The soaked pillow rubbed uncomfortably against his cheek, but at this point, he honestly could not care.

He knew his mother wouldn't like to see him like this. Frozen, in the dark, lamenting every moment of the past few years. She always said “Come on, Louis, I'm not the only thing in your world. Go chase dreams, or at least your little sister around the backyard.” Louis would smile wearily, and remind her that she was a very important and cherished part of his world, and he would work on keeping that there until the day he died. “Well, promise me when I'm gone that you'll do something with your life. Write the novel. Quit the diner.” Louis nodded, and he promised.

And he stared with blurry eyes at the opposite cabin wall.

He thought this trip would be a few weeks at best. A few weeks to recuperate inside the loneliness he so craved, in the nothing he so wanted. Sure, he might have died in those few weeks, but months and months later, that's probably what everyone expected in the first place.

Everyone. Lottie. Louis wondered how they were faring. Daisy and Pheobs were probably more okay, since they were young and not as affected. It was always a mystery how Felicite was doing, but Louis guessed definitely better than him. And Lottie.

Lottie. He needed to text Lottie. If only he could get himself to move, just a little bit. Just to pick up his cell. Just... there. Louis managed to roll over onto his side, just enough to reach down and swipe the device off the floor.

No texts from Lottie from today filled the lock screen. Maybe she finally gave up on texting him. Maybe he needed to get over himself and text his sister back for once. Probably both. With a sigh, Louis unlocked the cell and entered the messaging app. The last text was from a few days go, from  _Lots <333._

_Miss you, love you xxx_

Louis' guilt deepened. He lay there for what felt like forever, contemplating on whether or not he should actually text her, or whether it wouldn't be cool and she would be mad at him for not texting at all.

Finally, Louis forced himself to type out a message in stilted, drawn out movements. A thumb press here, a thumb press there, and. He bit his lip.  _Send._

_Miss you, love you too. It's cold here_

He rolled back over on his back, eyes blurring where he kept them on the ceiling. Stomach thrashing with nerves, he passed the time until Lottie might text back by recounting every moment between entering the house and entering the hospital. A tear slid out only five times.

_How cold?_

Louis blinked. He hadn't actually expected her to text back. This made him more nervous. He checked the weather app before replying.

_-13 Celsius._

_Jesus, Louis. You sure know how to pick a place to disappear_

_Haha._

Louis wrinkled his nose, but he knew she didn't intend any malice behind her text. His heart ached with how much he loved her.

There were a few more minutes before her next text. He wondered what she was doing right now. The time, apparently, was almost midnight. So it was only almost eleven in the UK. They were both due to cry themselves to sleep in a little bit, but especially Lottie because she still had school tomorrow.

_It doesn't feel like a year. It feels like it was yesterday_

_I miss her everyday._ Louis' fingers were shaking when he pressed send.

_So much it hurts, lol. I miss you too, Louis_

_You already said that... but me too. I miss everyone_

Again, silence interrupted their conversation, for a lot longer than Louis wanted it to.

_Do you think about her, Louis?_

_Every single day_

_Sometimes I think I think about her a lot more than I should. A year is a long time right?_

_I thought that too. But I guess not for something like this. Sometimes I think itll never go away_

_I'm glad I'm not alone in this.......... I love you_

Louis smiled, small and secret, into the darkness.

_I love you too. I love you, I love the girls, I love Dan. Tell them all I love them_

_Will do. Happy deathiversary, big brother_

Morbid. He liked the term.

As Louis stared at the text message, his eyelids drooped, although he felt no sleep at all on the inside. That's how things usually went these days. It was a sort of an empty sleep. Sleep just to refuel the body, but nothing that cured his constant exhaustion, which did nothing to help his constant distraught state. The cycle goes on.

It was one am when Lottie sent the next text message, but Louis' fingers were too heavy to type out another answer.

_When are you going to come back home? No rush, but daisy complains about dan's packed lunches. He never puts in the oreo that you do_

Louis' heart jumped in his throat, and he suppressed another sad smile. Or, a ghost of one. If he could smile in his sleepy state, there would have been a smile. The phone slipped from his lead hands and he burrowed his face into the still damp pillow, willing the tides to pull him under. His last thought before succumbing to the riches of nothingness was huh, Dan is just the health nutter that Harry is.

 

 

“Happy birthday.” Louis squeezed his eyes shut tighter. If he wanted it enough, the voice would go away. “Hey, happy birthday.” Did the voice have no respect for Louis' state of being? It was asleep, thanks very much.

A hand shook his shoulder, jostling him from his hibernating caterpillar position against the wall of the cabin. It was cold, but so was he, so they meshed. Louis really did like his cabin.

“Hey, birthday boy, get up. Your cute sleep face doesn't phase me,  _get up_.”

Louis cracked one eye open, spying Harry's springy, curly hair tumbling over his vision. His words were tough, but the soft grin still managing to stretch from ear to ear betrayed otherwise. Louis frowned back.

“Good morning, happy birthday,” Harry said, carding his freezing fingers through Louis' messy fringe. Okay, maybe cold and cold didn't mesh. Louis made a noise of protest, weakly trying to pull Harry's hand away from his head. Harry laughed and caught his fingers instead, dragging them up to his face and kissing the knuckles. Something surged through Louis, but he squashed it as quickly as it came. It was too early, too dark. “You should get up.”

Louis again shook his head and made to take his hand back, but Harry retaliated by using his grip to tug him into a sitting position.

“I'm going to put on a fire,” Harry announced, throwing his scarf and many jackets into the corner. “I also got groceries, so I'm making you breakfast.”

“You're too sweet to me,” Louis sighed.

“I wouldn't want to do anything else,” Harry replied, flashing a smile. Louis turned to hide his own sheepish smile.

Pretty soon, the smell of eggs on toast bid Louis to get fully dressed. They both plopped down on the sofa, each with a steaming plate of breakfast and the warmth of the stove in the corner.

“Mm,” Louis groaned through a mouthful of toast.

“Good?” Harry asked, biting his lip.

“Like God himself cast down a basket of eggs and a loaf of bread and said 'go forth, Harry, and whip up the best goddamn eggs on toast Louis will ever have'.”

Harry barked a laugh, averting his eyes to his plate and blushing. Really, it was that good.

“I would've made bacon, but the shops ran out,” Harry apologized.

“That is a-okay.”

They scarfed down the rest in near silence, only interrupted by the gusts of wind and the flickering of the fire.

“We should get going soon,” Harry said as he piled the plates in the shallow sink. “If we want to get there and unpack before we waste all of my break sitting in your cabin.”

“I can't wait to walk for an hour straight in the cold,” Louis cheered, watching Harry work with heavy lids. He didn't mind, but it was funny to see Harry's reactions.

Harry tutted. “The aurora is prettier up at the university cabin. I told you, you'll like it.”

“I know I will. I just don't see why we can't take the snow mobile.”

“Liam's borrowing it. He's taking the new girl at UNIS to another cabin down south.”

“Is she pretty?”

“Not as pretty as you.”

Louis hummed. If she wasn't even as pretty as the tear-tracked mess Louis resembled most of the time, Liam stealing Harry's snow mobile was totally not worth it.

Harry turned around and leaned against the counter. “You should pack for a few days. I'm bringing enough food for until the day after Christmas.”

Louis considered making Harry pack for a moment, but he ultimately decided against it, shuffling from the sofa to the bed. He pulled his rucksack and duffel bag from under the wooden frame and began transferring clean clothes from the duffel to the backpack. After wrestling a second thick winter jacket inside, he tossed in the poem anthology and  _Mrs. Mike,_ because he couldn't bear to part for even a day without his novels.

Finally, Louis wrapped himself up in his thick winter gear and slung the bag over his shoulder. Harry was already fully clad, beanie tugged over curls and fur trimmed hood brushing his cheeks. A flash of something long ago flitted through Louis' mind – Harry, with a saran-wrapped casserole in one hand and a rifle in the other, grin from dimple to dimple. Louis couldn't help but give a tiny, perhaps barely noticeable smile. Certainly something anybody but Harry wouldn't notice.

“What's that for?” Harry asked.

“Nothing, it's just. You still look funny carrying a rifle.”

Harry cocked an eyebrow and adjusted the very same rifle, now slung over his shoulder. “For your safety and protection.”

“Doesn't change the fact that you're a big goofball carrying a deadly weapon.”

Harry shook his head and giggled, choosing to throw open the cabin door in lieu of replying. The fire had already been put out, and Louis reached to flick off the lamp, but a blow of frigid wind swept through the cabin and chilled them anyway. Damn the cold.

Louis thought back to the text conversation from last week.  _You sure know how to pick a place to disappear._ Louis could almost laugh if the urge to hadn't suddenly deserted him. He stepped into the freezing snow, letting the air fill his lungs, and left the cell in the cabin behind them.

The trek proved long and grueling, although the chilled wind tried desperately to re-energize them through the hour-long snow hike up North. But the rewards were breathtaking.

Like their own cabins, this one was pressed up between the sea and the mountains, although the space stretched wide back in Longyearbyen. A quarter of a mile forward, Louis would be knee deep in the churning sea, and a quarter of that quarter back, he would be making snow angels at a practical ninety degree angle. The cabin stood nestled in between, a shack with thin walls, one chimney stack, and piles of fresh white fluff pressed up against the sides and the roof. The one word to sum it up was quaint. Perfect for Christmas, really.

 _Christmas._ The first Christmas without his sisters. Hopefully the last.

Harry took his gloved hand for the last few yards and led them both forward. In the cloudless sky, the moon shone a spotlight on the cabin, lighting their finishing steps.

After a treacherous journey that Louis would hit Liam in the head over, Harry wrenched the rusting door open and they both collapsed into the dusty, icy space, smiling and breathing puffs of moonlit fog.

“See? Worth it,” Harry huffed, letting his bags thump to the floor.

“It'll be worth it when I see the Northern Lights,” Louis replied, throwing his own bag on the floor and taking a peek around their vacation home. If you can call this a vacation. Lottie would probably say it's the worst one in existence. But Louis didn't care; he had Harry with him.

The room was sparse at best. It held a ratty sofa in one corner, inching into a sorry excuse for a kitchen that Harry was already unpacking the trip's groceries in. Two twin beds were pushed against the opposite wall, a foot of space between them. To their right, a rickety desk was surrounded by boxes, probably full of whatever research crap UNIS gets up to.

Louis tugged off his outermost layer and gloves and sauntered over to the wooden kitchen counter, leaning against it as Harry sorted through it. Really, it wasn't much, partly because they would only be gone for two days, and partly because the Svalbard super market was decidedly... less than super. You can only get so much north of the arctic circle.

Louis reached for the last bag, intending to help for once in his life time, but Harry caught his wrist.

“Nope,” Harry said, pulling the bag into himself instead. “Not that one.” He still held his wrist firmly. “It's got your present in it.”

“I thought the breakfast was my present.”

Harry loosened his grip and slid his fingers down to encase Louis' own fingers. Louis' heart jumped slightly, and he fought to keep his gaze on Harry's eyes. It was a thing Harry liked doing, holding hands. But Louis wasn't complaining.

“Yeah, but your Christmas present.” Harry raised his eyebrows as if to say,  _obviously._

“You didn't have to do that,” Louis protested.

“Did you?”

Louis bit his lip. “I did.”

“Well then, it's settled.” Harry shrugged and turned to hide the last bag in one of the cabinets. Louis squinted in curiosity, but decided to let it slide. After all, he did get Harry a present. He might be awfully sad, and barely have the energy to get out of bed, but he'll trudge to the shop for a few souvenirs. One for Harry, and a few for his sisters, since they were always in his mind. The package sat at the bottom of the rucksack.

“So,” Harry said. “Are you tired?”

“Extremely.” Louis answered him by dramatically falling onto one of the twin beds, almost moaning at the warmth it gave off. Harry rolled his eyes.

“I'm gonna light the stove,” he said. “It's, like, six in the evening. If you want to take a nap, then you still can.”

Louis contemplated it. He wasn't sure if he could really fall asleep at all that moment, but then he thought about cuddling Harry, and the warmth crept into his mind.

Once the fire blazed, Louis had changed into pyjamas and hid under the covers, tracing patterns in the stiff pillow fabric with his finger. Harry flopped onto the twin bed opposite, looking ready to fall asleep as well.

“Goodnight?” Louis asked, eying Harry's decidedly not-pyjamas outfit.

“Sweet dreams,” Harry hummed, giving one last serene smile before he closed his eyes. Louis guessed he could do that, too, and tried his hardest to give in to the tide's pull.

 

 

Somewhere in the middle of the night, Louis' covers lifted off of him. He mumbled, still half asleep, at the warmth-taking offender.

“I couldn't sleep well,” came Harry's syrupy, low voice, following by a body pressing along Louis' back. The covers fell back down, swathing the both of them in the last embers of Harry's stove fire.

“'S okay,” Louis sighed, relaxing into the loose grip Harry's hand claimed on his side. Almost immediately, Louis drew back into sleep with a grin on his face, and he knew Harry did, too.

 

 

Louis' eyes fluttered awake to the twin bed creaking. A cold spot feathered over his back, and he rolled over to find Harry hunched over the edge of the bed, facing the window lighting the cabin with the moon. He blinked a few times, adjusting to the idea of being alive, and pulled on the hem of Harry's thick pyjamas.

“Good morning,” he yawned. Harry twisted around to face him, a sweet smile playing on his lips. God, Louis wanted to kiss them. It was probably ass o'clock in the morning, and he wanted to kiss them.

“Morning,” Harry greeted, ruffling Louis' hair. “Merry Christmas.”

Merry – oh.  _Oh._ Today was Christmas day.

Involuntarily, Louis frowned, mind speeding back to his sisters, and to Dan. He wouldn't be able to send them a Christmas text today. Or to – or to his mum, for that matter. She wouldn't even be able to reach her cell phone. Of course, she was dead. This time last year, Louis was clad head to toe in black and marched down the dreary aisles of a cemetery towards her final resting place. There was her casket, he could picture it so clearly in his mind. A rose color, like her favorite flower. Merry Christmas, Mum.

A wave of sadness swept over Louis, so visible that the smile dropped from Harry's face as well.

“Okay?” he asked, looking genuinely worried at the sudden twist of events. Louis had slept sound that night, wrapped up in Harry's arms. But now. Now it was Christmas.

Louis blinked. He supposed he could be worse.

Harry shifted a knee on the bed, turning to get a clearer look at Louis. “You know, it's a Christmas miracle,” he said. Louis raised an eyebrow. “My professor said that the Northern Lights would be especially strong today.”

Louis gave a small, lifeless smile. His mother would love to see the lights.

“I know you'll like it,” Harry assured him. “It's the prettiest thing you'll ever see.” Slipping off the bed, he stretched his arms wide and up, dragging the tips of his fingers against the grainy wood ceiling of the cabin. “Besides you, of course.”

Louis scoffed and rolled his eyes. Harry could be so forward. Not that Louis minded. Like, at all.

The sky outside was still empty of everything but the faint moon light. Slowly, ever so slowly, Louis pushed himself up into a sitting position. The window really was quite large. It encompassed most of the wall and was as wide as it was tall, quite awkward in the already awkwardly decorated one room cabin. The other twin bed made its home right beneath the window, sheets thrown back from when Harry crawled out of it.

“We missed dinner?” Louis asked.

“Yup,” Harry replied as he shut a cabinet. Louis' stomach didn't growl, but he could see that Harry was fixing up some sandwiches for the both of them. “It's early now. We've got bread, though.”

Louis nodded. “When are the Northern Lights?”

“The aurora borealis is supposed to be in an hour or so. Who knows, really. That's what I was up, actually. Set myself an alarm.”

Again, Louis nodded, even though he wasn't sure Harry could see.

They ate in silence, sat on Louis' bed. Louis' thought about his mother the entire time. He wondered what another Christmas would have been like with her. He missed having Christmas with her. He missed everything about her.

As Louis managed to stomach the last morsel of bread, his breath slightly shaky with all the thinking and thinking and thinking, he glanced out the window. In the distance, the very small distance, a faint white lit up the sky.

“When I was little,” Louis mumbled, the words filtering out slowly. “Like, nine or so? The twins weren't there yet. Mum, um, she took us into the city for Christmas.” Louis couldn't bear to watch Harry as he talked, this mindless babbling. He didn't often talk about her, but hell, it was Christmas. It was Christmas, he loved Harry, and he wanted to share it with him. “We went to a Christmas festival. It was her carrying baby Felicite, and me pulling Lottie along because she would disappear into the crowds if I didn't hold her hand. Mum said it was a special event, because a festival might just be a festival, but on Christmas, everything glows. The street lamps lit yellow, the stalls streamed with hot chocolate and warm cookies, and everyone radiates this cheery warmth you can only get on Christmas. She told me 'Louis, see? Your cheeks are glowing.' I was so happy.  _She_ was so happy.” Biting his lip, he drew in a deep breath. “I'm pretty sure that was the best Christmas I've ever had. She let me pick out all the sweets I wanted for my birthday. I sneaked some to Lottie, and she even pretended not to notice.”

Harry didn't interrupt a word. He only listened intently, drinking in every word Louis spilled like it was important. Maybe it was to him. Like Louis said, he didn't talk much, but when he did, it was an avalanche. The Svalbard slopes crumbled with stories about his mother.

“She sounds like the best mum,” Harry whispered, soft as a snowflake. Louis nodded jerkily.

“She was.”

A glint of something green spread across the sky before disappearing into the black. Harry squinted and leaned towards the window.

“If that's it, I swear to God,” he said. Pulling back, a cute pout dimpled his cheeks, and Louis couldn't help but let out a wobbly laugh. Harry giggled in response, a sparkle in his eyes.

“I'm sorry I'm so depressing on Christmas,” Louis apologized suddenly. “I – I don't mean it, really. It's just-”

“Hey. Don't worry about it.” Harry's tone was stern but sweet, soft and hard. He squeezed Louis' arm in reassurance. “I don't mind, not at all. I just love hearing you speak. Besides, talking helps.”

Louis really, really wanted to kiss him.

“I know it's super silly of me to say this, but when I was in high school, I didn't have many friends. Like, at all.”

“Really? But you're so charismatic. And chatty.”

“University changes a man, Louis. Anyway, I didn't have many friends, and my family wasn't super close, but I did have somebody. One friend. We don't really talk anymore, but at the time, she was a really important outlet for me. I wouldn't be the same if I couldn't talk to her about shitty things, you know?”

Louis didn't answer, just let it roll around in his mind for a minute. He never really had anyone like that, he didn't think. He couldn't talk to the girls; they were too young. Dan might've been an accomplice, but he swooped in at the end. And Zayn. Zayn was Zayn. He was not an option at all.

“What I'm trying to get at,” Harry continued. “Is that everyone deserves someone to talk to. And I can be that someone. For you. You don't have to shut yourself off when you want to talk about her, or other things. It makes me happy to be there for you.”

For a moment, Louis was stunned into silence. His heart filled, between tears and love. He let out a wet laugh, small and weak, but the smile creeping onto his face conveyed it.

“You have been,” Louis said. “Thank you.” And he has, really. He's always been there for Louis. A shoulder to cry on, someone who wouldn't judge Louis whenever he broke down crying, or couldn't get up, or was plagued by numbness he just couldn't seem to shake off throughout the day. He still treated Louis like a normal human being, he was still there.

Louis broke their deep stare, casting his eyes out the window again. Everything was still dark as night, even though it was close to ten am now. Even though Svalbard was an endless sprawling land of beauty, the dark blanketed the archipelago with something sorrowful. Maybe it was just the mood.

Something sparked in his memory.

Unfolding himself from the bed, Louis shuffled over to his rucksack thrown haphazardly on the cabin floor. He rooted through the thick clothes, finally pulling the poem anthology from the mess. Harry gave him a curious look as he climbed back onto the bed.

“There's, um, this poem,” Louis began, flipping through the pages, “that reminds me of her. I used to read it a lot, right after she passed away. It's just this one line.” He landed on the page, another poem highlighted into oblivion. The title read  _A Letter to Her Husband._ He handed the book to Harry, fingers trembling.

“My head, my heart, mine Eyes, my life, nay more. My joy, my Magazine of earthly store. If two be one, as surely thou and I...” His eyes scanned the words for the highlighted and underlined quote Louis loved so much. “Return, return, sweet Sol, from Capricorn.” The line always stung Louis.

“It – it means, like, her husband is her sun, and it's winter without him. Whenever he isn't there, the light leaves.” Both of them looked outside. “And. When she left, when she died. It was winter. It was dark. And she was always such a, such a light in my life. I want her to come back.” The tears pricking at the corners of his eyes threatened to spill, his throat constricting with every word.

Harry gently closed the book and set it on the itchy bedspread. Pulling Louis into a hug, he buried his nose into the crook of his neck, wrapping his arms in the tightest hug he could possibly muster. Louis tried his hardest not to full out bawl when he wasn't done blabbering.

When Harry loosened his grip, rubbing a hand up and down Louis' back, he began again. “The Puritans of America, when Anne Bradstreet lived. They believed everyone went at their time, and just... accepted it. It was an act of God. But -” he shuddered “- how could they say that? Like, have total acceptance over something that just fucking ripped me apart.” Drops of green and white spilled themselves across the sky, streaming in little ribbons. “I don't want her to go. I don't think it was her time.”

Harry threaded his fingers through Louis' hair, holding him close as the salt ran down his face.

“B-but I want to accept it. I miss her so much, but I just want to accept that it happened.” Louis began to sob, the same thoughts about her running on repeat in his mind. Harry was a beacon through the mist, grounding him as he just cried  _I miss her, I miss her, I miss her._

“Shh,” Harry whispered, stroking his fingers. “It's alright.” It wasn't. But it could be.

Harry mumbled sweet things into Louis' ear as he calmed down, little by little. It was never easy, but it could be.

“You know what this needs,” Harry muttered, pulling back to catch Louis' tired eyes. “Christmas presents.”

Louis couldn't help but laugh out of surprise. He'd forgotten all about that. Harry grinned, a hint of mischief in there somewhere, and gently let Louis go to venture into the kitchen.

“As the aurora borealis unfold above us, let us exchange gifts,” he said, and Louis smiled weakly, catching sight of the view outside the window. Shades of pale whites and neon greens roped across the sky, shimmering and stretching and worming their way for hundreds of miles.

“It's gorgeous,” Louis sighed.

“I told you,” Harry said. “It's glacier level incredible.”

Louis drank it in for a few moments more before following Harry's lead and digging his own present out of the bottom of the bag. It wasn't much, really, since Svalbard didn't have much to offer besides Niall's abundant collection of beer. He hoped Harry would appreciate it anyway.

Together, they plopped back down on the bed, both angling a little towards the window and a little towards each other. Louis looked practically with one eye at the spectacle before them and the cascading curls of Harry. They hid their presents behind their backs on Harry's request.

“Okay, on three, we'll reveal them,” Harry announced. “One, two... three.”

Louis took the present out of its hiding place and thrust it forward, just as Harry held out... a bag of tangerines.

“A sweater!” Harry cried, grinning from ear to ear. “Just what I needed. I've been cold ever since we got up.” He rubbed the fabric with his fingers, feeling the soft red yarn decorated with cute images of reindeer and snowmen. “This is adorable, thank you.”

“And this is...,” Louis said, turning the bag of tangerines over in his hands.

“Tangerines,” Harry beamed, “You needed something sweet, and it was the most expensive thing in the store. Fresh fruit is hard to come by.”

“I think you're sweet enough,” Louis shrugged, wiping the wet off his cheeks. He loved it. “It's perfect. Thank you.”

Harry bit his lip and looked down.

“Seriously, though,” Louis went on. “Thank you. For everything.”

“It's no problem, really,” Harry waved nonchalantly, but Louis could see his heart swelling from miles away.

“It means a lot to me. You're, you're always there for me. Even when I don't want you to be. An you make me want to get up, and do things. Like, adventure and things.”

Harry shook his curls, still smiling. “I don't make you do anything. You do that for yourself.”

“You help me. I couldn't do it without you.”

“You're the one that's brave enough and strong enough to get yourself up in the morning. I'm a catalyst. It's all you, Louis,” Harry said, and Louis couldn't help but grin back shyly. God, he  _still_ wanted to kiss him terribly.

“Sometimes I think a year is too long for this to go on,” Louis admitted quietly. “I think I might be getting better. I think it's because of you.”

“You take as long as you need. I'll always be here for you.”

At that, Louis' entire body swelled, heart leaping against his ribcage. He loved Harry so, so much. He didn't need to answer with words.

Almost in sync, they both surged forward, meeting like puzzle pieces in the middle. Louis found Harry's lips immediately, pressing softly, then harder when Harry brought his hands up to cup his cheeks. His lips were chapped from the cold, and neither of them had the greatest breath, but the light flooded between them something magic. It was beautiful. Harry was beautiful. Louis ached with it, ached with everything.

Louis pulled back slightly, breathing harder and already wanting to dive right back in. “Merry Christmas,” he said. Harry smiled against him, giggling and, if his eyes were open, probably rolling his eyes.

“Oh my god,” Harry huffed. “Merry Christmas, now come back here, you fool.”

“Will do,” Louis laughed, and was happy to do just that.

 

 

The bar was warm, Louis' veins were warm, and Harry's bicep was incredibly warm.

Okay, Louis wasn't drunk in any capacity. They'd just gotten to the New Year's Party and Niall had only just thrown him and Harry a beer. There were just a lot of bodies crowding the bar, the hallway, and the dining rooms of the  _Huset._ Louis figured the entire population of Longyearbyen was stuffed inside the town's only bar.

Niall was around here somewhere, and so were Liam, Perrie, and the other people he met at this very bar last month. Two months ago? Louis didn't know. It was the dawn of the New Year, it didn't matter.

“Liam!” Harry cried, and oh, there he was. Louis followed Harry's gaze to find Liam's puppy dog slash lumberjack face beaming adorably at the two of them. Harry waved maniacally and they pushed off the bar to go talk.

“Hey guys!” Liam greeted, clapping them both on the back. “How's it going?”

“Good,” they both said simultaneously, and Liam piqued an eyebrow. His eyes flickered between their tangled hands and their grins, and seemed to put two and two together.

“Congratulations!” he said, giving them a thumbs up. “Cute as hell, the both of you.”

Harry ducked his head and bit his lip, and Louis flashed him a thumbs up back, not really knowing what to say. They hadn't actually discussed it, but honestly, they were already halfway there.

“Did you see Niall?” Liam asked.

“Yeah, he gave us these,” Harry said, holding up his beer. “We just got here, though.”

“Of course that was the first thing he did,” Liam said, rolling his eyes fondly. “I was just about to play a game of pool if you want to come with me. Perrie is upstairs with Jade, and Nick and Ed are already at the pool table.”

“Cool,” Harry nodded. He glanced at Louis. “You want to?”

“Yeah, for sure,” Louis agreed. Liam led them over to the table, where the rest were already poking balls like it was their one goal in life. No, Louis had never played pool before. Liam tossed them sticks, and beckoned them to play.

The music pumped loudly through the building as people bumped around in their socked feet, rocking moves and beers and loud folk Norwegian music. Niall sneaked in some Irish jigs here and there, and climbed on top of a chair with his guitar for one of them to rock out a tune with a fellow Irishmen. Louis swallowed one, two, maybe three? bottles. Maybe it was more. Who knows. Harry was pressed up against him half an hour before midnight, an arm around his waist and chatting animatedly with Perrie, whose hair now boasted a bright neon pink.

“I don't understand how you ever tolerated Mr. Stone,” Harry said loudly, pointing the nozzle of his bottle towards her accusingly.

“I'm just saying that when I went to university, before I quit for the dogs, he was an alright guy!”

“He gave us homework right after a trip! It's unreal. And he lost one of our data monitors in the sea, which is totally not cool.”

“Whatever. Maybe it's his mid-life crisis,” Perrie shrugged. “I loved his class, though.”

“You just love his hair.”

“There's nothing wrong-”

“Hey Louis!” a distinctly Irish voice called across the room. His blonde head popped up behind the bar. “I need your opinion on something!”

“One sec!” Louis yelled back. He glanced up at Harry, who beckoned him to go, flashing a soft smile before turning back to Perrie, probably launching into an argument on the best way to calculate trends in a graph or something. Louis skirted groups of people to slide behind the bar with Niall, who actually might be on his tenth beer. Who knows about the Irish, really?

“You looked like you needed to get out of a science conversation,” Niall said, poking Louis in the side. “That's what you get with these science types. Fucking science!”

Louis chuckled, watching Niall hand more people their bottles.

“Anyway,” Niall continued, wiping his hands on a dish towel. “How are you doing lately?”

“I'm okay, yeah,” Louis replied. His mind swirled with thoughts of his mum, and then of Harry, Harry, Harry, and yeah. He was okay for right now.

Niall threw him a lopsided grin. “Fucking aces. The snow does people good, mate!”

Louis nodded in agreement. Niall accepted more bills, stuffing them into the cash drawer before turning back to Niall. He paused, giving Louis a curious once over with this secretive sort of smile.

“You look a lot happier this time,” Niall commented.

Louis blushed, whether it was from the alcohol or from the words. “I guess I found paradise.”

“Oh?” Niall raised his eyebrows. “Well, then. Let's toast to it!”

Niall grabbed a new bottle for himself and held it up, clanking it with Louis' raised, halfway empty one. They both erupted in tiny cheers until interrupted by a girl in the center of the room shouting “Ten minutes!” in warped English.

“Better get back to it, then,” Niall said, gesturing toward Harry, who had moved onto dancing terribly with Nick while Ed actually threw out some slick moves.

“Yeah,” Louis agreed, and waved goodbye as he ducked back around the bar to go join them.

“Louis!” Harry slurred as he approached, raising his arms in glee. “They said ten minutes! Ten minutes till New Year!”

“I heard it!” Harry took his hands and wiggled to the music a little more despite Louis' noncooperation to dance. Suddenly, he slumped forward, leaning heavily against Louis.

“Will you be my New Year's kiss?” he asked.

“There isn't anyone who I would rather it be,” he answered honestly, and Harry's responding deep dimples made something burn bright in Louis' stomach. He wanted to kiss them, so he did, one to each. Harry gave a wet smooch to his forehead in return, capturing Louis into a hug.

“Oi!” Niall said as he sidled up beside the group. “No PDA in a public bar.”

“How are you literally everywhere at once,” Harry said in exasperation, squinting his eyes at the blonde. “Is it an Irish thing?”

“It's a bar owner thing.”

Harry shrugged. “Fair enough.”

“One minute!” the same girl screamed. Everyone in the whole building halted almost instantaneously, remaining stationary for the rest of the countdown.

“Thirty seconds!” Louis and Harry tore their eyes away from the clock and looked only at each other.

“Fifteen seconds!” Harry drew Louis in close as best he could through both of their drunken hazes, swaying in spot.

“Ten!”

“Nine!”

“Eight!” Louis wrapped his arms around Harry's neck.

“Seven!”

“Six!”

“Five!” They were barely a hair's width away from each other. Still too much – fuck Niall's PDA.

“Four!”

“Three!”

“Two!” Harry buried a hand in Louis' hair.

“One!”

As the entire bar, dining room, hallway, probably balcony if they had one, erupted in hundreds of cheers, they pressed their lips against each other, light and chaste and still everything they needed from each other.

“Happy New Year's, Louis,” Harry breathed, barely audible in his ear.

“Happy New Year's,” Louis repeated as he grinned into Harry's shoulder.

“To new beginnings!” he cried.

“To new beginnings,” Louis repeated, right before Harry's mouth found a way to his again.

“Hey, watch what I said!” Niall yelled, knocking Harry on the back of the head. He cackled when Harry whipped around with the most accusative expression ever known to man.

“Fine,” Harry pouted, releasing Louis. “But I won't be happy about it.”

“Just be happy it's a new year, then,” Niall said, and that seemed to placate all of them.

For two hours, Louis ended up dancing alongside Harry to the weirdest playlist of Norwegian pop, English rock and roll, and Irish folk jigs. Harry sang his little heart out to any of the words he knew, Norwegian pop music or not. He looked radiant, sporting an enormous, gorgeous smile for the rest of the night. Maybe Louis was imagining things when the smile grew brighter on him, but maybe not.

“Hey,” Louis said when Harry pulled them both into the corner to escape Niall's hawk eyes while snogging. “We should head home.”

Harry nodded in enthusiasm. “Home, yes. Where you can kiss me more, yes. Definitely.”

“Don't be so sure, yet. We have to get there first, in the freezing cold.”

“Not a problem,” Harry argued, latching his mouth on a bare spot on his neck. “Let's gooo.”

“Niall!” Louis waved as Niall sprinted past them. “We're leaving.”

Niall shot them a grin and a thumbs up before disappearing into the masses.

The road home was shorter than the road to the bar. Since neither of them were fit to drive, they trudged through thick snow all while holding hands and chattering excited stories. As soon as Louis was pushed through the front door, Harry was on him again, holding him hostage by the collar of his sweaters.

“We have to – we have to get undressed.”

“That's unfair,” Harry whined, but complied, stripping down into the warm first layer they both wore. “Now we can kiss more.”

Louis giggled, pulled him in by the shoulders and diving in. Somewhere in the middle of his hazy brain, Louis wondered what they were, what they could be. He really wished he could call this boy his boyfriend. The word seemed to roll nicely off his tongue.

Harry's tongue swept at his bottom lip, and Louis opened his mouth to grant access, eliciting sweet sounds out of the boy.

In the corner of his peripheral vision, Louis spotted his phone light up. It was resting against the cover of his bed, where they were heading. The screen darkened, until it lit up even brighter than before.

“I should check that,” Louis interrupted, shifting just a little to reach for the cell on the bed. “I should -” but suddenly, he felt like he didn't need to move. That's what alcohol will do with you, kids. Instead, as they landed on the edge of the bed, Louis swiped it off the covers and let it clatter to the floor. He'll deal with that tomorrow. For now...

“You're literally the best kisser I've ever met,” Harry moaned into his mouth, swiping his thumbs across Louis' cheeks.

“I've not got much practice,” Louis countered, fingers spreading across the smooth muscle beneath Harry's clothing.

“Then my point stands even better,” Harry said. Louis felt a smile press up against his lips, and yeah. That was it. He wanted this kid as his boyfriend.

The thoughts slipped from his mind; Louis was too occupied to even think about discussing labels, or anything for that matter. Harry's lips were heaven against hell in his kisses, and that was all that really mattered. Louis would ask tomorrow.

 

 

Wh-what was that. What was that.... that ringing. In Louis' ears. This constant... he didn't set an alarm, did he?

Louis blinked awake from a shallow, but peaceful sleep. Harry snored away beside him, an arm thrown over his waist. Carefully, ever so carefully, Louis raised himself onto his elbows to survey the complete darkness of the room. Would that be... His ring tone. Definitely, yes.

Oh, and he threw his cell on to the floor last night.

Louis delicately extracted Harry's arm from around his body, sitting up and stretching like his life depended on it. Swinging his feet over the bed, he crouched down to swipe the offending device off the ground. The screen wasn't cracked, thank God, but the notifications... Twenty-four missed calls from Dan.

Louis flared with the confusion, staring wide-eyed at the screen as he waited for the caller to make an appearance again. Harry stirred behind him, groaning like he always does before sitting up.

“Everything okay?” Harry asked, voice guttural from sleep.

“Yeah,” Louis nodded, just as Dan's ID popped up on the screen. The default ring tone filled the air. It reminded Louis of calling his mother. “Hello?” he mumbled into the receiver.

“ _Louis_ ,” Dan yelled, his tone overrun by panic. “ _Louis, your sister's gotten into a car crash._ ”

 

“What?”

“Lottie,” Dan said, “got in a car crash. And she's – she's not looking good, she's not-”

“ _What_?”

Louis' mouth went dry. His mind cartwheeled as he tried to process what Dan just said. Lottie, she got. Lottie got in a car crash. She's not stable. Oh my god, she's not -

Louis shot up from the bed, though his trembling legs could barely hold him up. The phone shook against his ear, and his vision blurred before him.

“What time is it?” he hissed.

“It's five in the morning in the UK,” Dan said. “I tried to call you last night, but you wouldn't answer. She crashed at around one am here, coming home from a New Year's party.”

Louis couldn't think. He had ignored important phone calls about the health of his  _sister_ for sleeping?

“And how's she doing?”

There was a pause, wider than the Atlantic Ocean. He could hear Dan take a static-laced breath on the other side.

“She's in a coma.”

She's in a coma.

Louis dropped the cell on the floor. He turned on his heel and stumbled towards the door. Wrenching the door open, Louis took one step outside and overturned his insides into the frigid snow. Somewhere behind him, Harry talked frantically, whether to the phone or to Louis he didn't know. All he knew was that his sister slept on for eternity. Louis doubled over again and didn't even try to brace himself against the sting of the acid.

“I'm his friend,” he heard through the door, through his sobs. When did Louis begin crying? “Yes, hello, nice to meet you, too... His, what?... Oh.” The talking stopped, and a moment later, Harry wrapped an arm around Louis' chest and pulled him back into the cabin. Louis' stomach still lurched, but Harry had the cell in his hand and Louis needed – Louis needed to talk to Dan.

“Give me the phone, give me the phone,” he gasped out, grabbing blindly for the device.

“Here's Louis,” Harry spoke into the receiver before pressing it into Louis' fingers.

“I'm coming home,” Louis said urgently, cradling the phone in his tremors. “N-now.”

“Don't rush yourself, Louis,” Dan warned. “I know-”

“No, I'm coming home right now.”

“Please, Louis-”

“ _Dan,_ p-please. I need to come home, I need to see her. I need-”

“I know how you get, Louis, you need to-”

Louis pressed  _end call_  and let it fall onto the blankets. He stared at it for about two seconds before crumbling.

Louis screamed and sank to the floor, entire body convulsing as he gripped at his hair and cried until his throat felt hoarse, and then some more. Flashes of Mum's coma bed, parked in the middle of the living room, attacked his mind, the only things he could see and hear and think and do and. She was in a coma and he was in Svalbard and he had to. He had to get home. He had to do -

A pair of strong arms encased him, whispering  _shh_ into his ear as he rocked back and forth and thought about little Lottie in a big hospital bed, waiting to fucking die.

“Louis,” Harry soothed, gently disentangling his fingers from his hair. “Louis, it's-”

“She's in a coma, Harry,” he shrieked. “She's dead, she's dead, she's-”

“She's not dead,” he said, voice still remaining infuriatingly calm. “It's a medically-induced coma, she's just in the hospital, don't be afraid. Lottie's not dead.”

 _She might as well be!_ he wanted to holler, beating his fists into nothing.

“I need to go back,” he cried instead, struggling to escape Harry's grasp and head for the computer. He needed a computer to book tickets, that's what he needed. Harry's tight grip held him back. “Let me  _go,_  I have to-”

“I'm not letting you go anywhere.”

“My little sister is dying, I need to go back.”

“Just wait a second.” Harry's tone was just sharp enough that Louis stopped squirming for a moment before he sank back into desperation, wailing and calling for his mum and his sister and for Harry to fucking let him go. His mind raced, wouldn't stay still, wouldn't stop spinning figure eights.

It was a minute before his screaming petered out into rasping words and rough howls, begging for Harry to let him go so he can see his sister. He had half a mind to dive into the snow and stumble his way to the airport on his own. His sister was  _dying._

Finally,  _finally,_  Harry loosened his grip, only to slide his hands under his armpits and lift him from the floor. He settled a shaking Louis on the edge of the bed, kneeling down before him.

“Hey, Louis,” he muttered, leaning in close. “What do you need?”

“I n-need to go, go back. I need to b-book flights, to go back,” he replied, barely able to push the sentence past his lips.

“I'm booking you flights, then,” Harry said, kissing Louis on the forehead and smoothing his rumpled shirt front. “Just stay here.”

Louis shook his head. “I'll do it, I will.”

“No, I'll do it.” Harry gave him a reassuring squeeze on the arm and bent down to pull the laptop from under the bed. He sat down right next to Louis, pulling him in close as he opened the laptop and waited to pull up the internet.

“I have to-”

“You don't have to do anything, not right now.”

“I have to b-be strong. I can do it,” Louis argued, although the way he struggled to speak betrayed his words. But he had to be strong, he had to be. For Lottie, for his mum, he had to be strong and – and do this himself, he had to.

Harry opened the flight page, biting his lip as he filled out the criteria. Louis blinked his vision clearer and fed him stilted information over his shoulder, trying his best to calm down. He needed to be strong.

“Done,” he whispered, closing the laptop. “It's in the afternoon. I'm coming with.”

Louis' eyes bulged. “No, no, don't do that. You don't need to, I can do this myself, I have to.”

“I'm going,” Harry said. His voice sounded final. Louis' stomach churned in protest, but when he opened his mouth, nothing came out. Harry carded his fingers through Louis' hair and tugged him into a hug, prompting more tears to jerk from his eyes. “It's going to be okay, shhh. It's going to be okay.” All Louis could think of was a pale face in a pale bed, over and over and over again.

 

 

Harry packed both of their bags while Louis sat on the bed, alternating between crying and nothing at all. He couldn't really see anything or hear anything, only watch vaguely as Harry stuffed random clothes into the duffel bag. That boneless feeling was back, try as he might to stave it off. As Harry carefully tucked his books into the rucksack, Louis fought back tears, picking at the skin of his quivering fingers.

At two hours until the airport, Harry kissed Louis' cheek and left to pack his own bag and lock his cabin up. When he came back, dumping the bag on the floor, he declared they should eat and take a small nap before heading off. Louis already knew he wouldn't be able to sleep, but he complied and picked at half of a sandwich before nestling in with Harry for an hour.

The hour dragged on as Louis laid completely still, staring blindly at the ceiling of the cabin. Harry rested deeply beside him, an arm thrown over his midriff. He couldn't bear to fall asleep and see her face again. Louis knew the pattern; leaves, a tinkling laugh, her dashing smile filling the atmosphere. It was a clockwork Louis wanted desperately to get out of. He was afraid this time it would be Lottie he would be dreaming after.

When Harry stirred to the sound of his phone alarm, Louis was in the same position, throat tight, leg asleep, and salt cracking on his cheeks.

“We have to leave,” Harry yawned, shutting off the alarm and shuffling onto his elbows. Louis barely nodded, internally amazed at how quick he had gone from a screaming freak out to a numb nobody, probably better off vegetating in this bed forever.

Harry noticed. He frowned, delicately outlining the bones of Louis' cheeks and watching as he barely made a reaction at all. The pit of despair had grasped hold once again, quicker and deeper than he'd seen it before.

“We're getting up,” Harry mumbled, rolling off the bed. He grabbed Louis' hand and yanked him into a sitting position. “Come on.”

Louis blinked and remembered that he needed to be strong for Lottie when they arrived in Doncaster. He swung one leg over the edge of the bed, then the other, and pushed himself off. Harry handed him his rucksack and maintained that he would carry the duffel. Louis walked, one foot in front of the other, out of the cabin and into the snow drifts, not knowing if he would ever see it again.

The stench of throw up permeated the air. Neither of them mentioned it.

Harry had called a cab earlier, since the snow mobile wasn't an option if both of them were leaving. It pulled up into the snow outside the cabin just as Harry locked the door, and the two of them were off.

“Enjoy your stay in Svalbard?” the cab driver asked over his shoulder.

“Amazing,” Harry answered for him, flashing his signature smile.

“Good,” the man nodded in approval, steering the car into the airport parking lot. “Everyone is lucky in Svalbard. You're lucky, too.”

It was in the middle of the airport when Louis realized he had to at least pretend to be a functioning human being if he were to get on this plane without a multitude of strange looks.

“How long until the plane boards?” he asked Harry.

“Not long now,” Harry assured, rubbing his arm. Louis nodded, breathing deeply.

“You didn't have to come,” he said, quiet as a mouse.

Harry gave him a look. He didn't know quite what it was, but it was a look. “I wanted to come.”

“I can do it.” Louis was afraid he was pouting.

“I want to do it with you,” Harry persisted. “You can do it with me.”

Louis couldn't answer. Instead, he stared out the vast back windows of the airport and watched as the mountain soldiers of Svalbard marched through the choking black smog flooding the sky.

 

 

“ _Tell the story of when Louis was pecked to death by geese again,_ ” Lottie giggled. She cast Louis a mischievous look, and Louis rolled his eyes and gazed up at the leaves rocking in the wind. He hated this story, but they loved it. His mum laughed from where she lay on her blanket, face turned into the sun to soak up the rays while they lasted.

“ _Well, we were at the lake,_ ” she began, “ _the proper big one by your grandma's house. I had just bought a foam sword, and the kid thought he was invincible. We were walking around the lake, and Louis was hitting the light poles, bushes, everything with that silly foam sword. Eventually, we came across pond geese, and Louis went right up to one and held out the sword. He challenged the thing to a duel!_ ” Felicite shrieked with giggles. “ _And... Louis, you tell this part better than me. How did you end up in the lake again?_ ”

Louis smiled and shook his head. Never, as long as he lived...

A distant snapping sound interrupted him.

Louis gasped awake. He lurched forward, only to hit his head on the back of the aeroplane seat before him.

“I just put your tray table up,” Harry whispered into the tired silence of the plane. “We're going to land soon.”

Louis huffed, frowning as he realized that, yet again, he fell asleep and had that dream. That one fucking dream. A million times, over and over and over. Nothing fucking changes.

“I fall asleep for one second,” he muttered crossly, resting his forehead against the cool fabric of the seat before him.

“It was more like two seconds,” Harry shrugged. He reached over and covered Louis' hand with his own. It didn't do anything at all.

The plane landed shortly thereafter. Everyone hustled to get off, the women in the window seat impatiently waiting for Louis and Harry to shrug off their thick jackets before retrieving their overhead bags and joining the line out of the plane. Louis glanced around the plane and thought it all dreary.

As Louis shuffled off the plane and into the tunnel leading into Manchester Airport, he tried to peer out the windows for the scenery. The sun blinded them both, squinting against its brightness after weeks of nothing at all. Outside, nothing but drab city stretched for miles and miles. No mountains, no deep valleys. Immediately, Louis missed it. He also knew he wasn't going back.

The airport bustled with people of all nationalities going to places of all types. On more than one occasion, Harry pulled him out of the way of a passing family, clad in khakis and white tennis shoes on their way to something exotic. Like Italy. Louis despised a family that could afford to vacation to Italy.

The train ride was equally uninteresting and despicable, but Louis leaned against Harry and thought about his sister at the end of the journey. Through the haze, his insides fizzed with the mere idea of finally seeing his sister in the flesh again. In actual real life.

With an oxygen mask around her mouth, and bruised purple skin.

Louis shuddered and felt like crying. It wasn't an uncommon occurrence.

From the train station, they hailed a cab. As they settled back into the uncomfortable cab seats, Louis finally spoke up.

“Where to?” the cabbie asked, smacking on his gum.

“St. Mary's Hospital,” Louis replied immediately. The cabbie cast him an odd look, but complied and set off for the hospital.

Louis and Harry both buckled in to the back seat, Harry clutching his hand across the cushions. He was beginning to feel jittery again with each meter the hospital drew closer. What would she look like? The same? Longer hair? He tried to remember that she wouldn't be able to speak, hear, or see him, her own brother. He also tried not to bawl in front of the cabbie over it.

“There you are,” the cabbie said, holding out his hand for the bills. Louis pressed some crumpled pounds into the palm and waved goodbye.

When the two of them crossed the threshold into the hospital, travel bags in their hands, it was as if an entirely different world had taken root. The sterilized floor to ceiling shiny surfaces muddled with their snow gear, still on from the dark of Svalbard. Louis' snow boots just looked weird squeaking across the tile to the desk.

“We're, um, here to see Charlotte Tomlinson,” he told the lady behind the desk, leaning forward and twiddling nervously with his fingers. She glanced at both of them suspiciously, eying their gear.

“Family?” she asked.

“Her older brother,” Louis replied.

“I'm-”

“Also her family,” Louis interrupted him. “We just came back from holiday.”

Her face darkened the moment she seemed to understand, giving them a pitiful smile. Oh, the poor boys, just waltzing around skiing in the Alps until they received the call of a lifetime. What a better way to end a holiday than with a car crash?

“Third floor, room 314,” she said, pointing towards the lifts. Louis nodded in thanks, hiked his rucksack on his shoulder, and let Harry steer him towards the lift.

“Sorry, it's just easier,” Louis said.

“I know.”

The metal doors slid open on the third floor. Louis stared down the long hallway. It reeked of the same disinfectant scent the entire hospital permeated, and the nauseating white of the whole corridor made Louis squint his eyes in protest. A girl rolled down in a wheelchair, one of her legs encased in a clumsy cast. At the desk, another bobbed haircut tapped studiously away at her outdated computer. She gave them a curious look as they strolled past, but otherwise didn't comment. Louis kind of wished she did.

Then, it was too soon. The silver plaque, 314, next to a closed door glared back at him. Harry moved towards the handle, but a rush of emotion surged through Louis and he caught his wrist in trembling fingers.

“Not yet,” he whispered. He remembered the last time he saw his sister, disappearing into the house all those months ago, her face streaked with tears. They told each other they loved each other. Lottie wouldn't hear him, now.

Before Louis could think anything else, the handle turned by itself and the heavy door swung open. Both Harry and Louis glanced up in surprise to find the one and only Dan Deakin in the entry. His hollow blue eyes locked with Louis' own.

“Louis,” Dan gasped loudly, jaw falling open.

“Dan,” Louis returned the greeting.

“Oh my god, Louis,” Dan cried out, and in the next moment, Louis was tackled backwards by the rumpled man. Dan engulfed him in a tight hug, to the point where Louis' breath came shorter and he honestly didn't really know what to do, only hug him back nervously. “Tell me the next time you disappear for ten months.”

“Sorry,” Louis said. His mind blanked on what else to say. A hi? An I've missed you? Probably. All he really did was try to peek around Dan into the hospital room.

Dan finally let him go, stepping back and smoothing his shirt. Noticing Harry behind him, he stuck out his hand.

“You must be Louis' friend,” Dan said, giving him a weak smile. Harry accepted the handshake with a firm grip.

“Harry,” he supplied.

“It's great to meet you.”

“You too.”

It was awkward, kind of. A thought flashed into Louis' mind. Was this meeting the boyfriend?

No, it wasn't. Dan wasn't his parent, and Harry wasn't his boyfriend.

“Um, anyway,” Dan went on. “I was just going to use the restroom. You probably want to... see your sister. So.” Dan stepped out of the way, motioning to the entry. “I'll be right down the hallway.”

The man waved and hurried down the hallway, leaving nothing between Louis and Lottie. His heart climbed further into his throat. As he took the first step forward, his breath hitched.

“It's alright,” Harry mumbled, taking Louis hand in his own. Louis squeezed and pulled them both into the hospital room.

The first thing he noticed was the burning sun streaming in through the open windows. The second thing he noticed was a head of blonde hair draped over a starched hospital pillow.

Lottie sunk into the white hospital bed, her pallid face blending into the sheets that covered her. Only her face and arms, draped over the bed, were visible. Wires of all sorts came off her, leading to machines beeping on either side. On her fragile face a sort of feeding apparatus had been strapped by a long white strip of tape, and her neck was kept straight with a neck brace. As Louis drew closer, chest constricting, he saw the dark bruises peppering her skin, stark yellows and royal purples and crass greens. A scabbing gash ran from her temple all the way down to her jawline.

Louis choked, covering his mouth with a hand. He couldn't bear to look. He had to. Louis wiped the tracks off his cheeks and came up to the edge of the bed, staring down into Lottie's perfectly blank face.

“Hey,” he said softly, even though he knew she wouldn't be able to answer him. Who could with a lack of brain activity and that damn thing in their mouth? When their mum was in their house, she didn't have a tube in their face. The in home nurse did everything. It somehow made her more human. “D-do you think she can hear me?”

“I've read that coma patients can hear everything,” Harry said from where he hung in the back of the room. Louis nodded numbly.

Slowly, Louis took his sister's fingers in his hand, thumb rubbing across the smooth skin. She was beautiful even in sleep, especially in sleep.

“Hello,” he breathed again, the word halted with the force it took to get it out of his mouth. Ten months ago, what was the last thing she said to him?  _I love you._

Louis heaved, vision blurring as he looked from her closed eyes to the thing in her mouth back to her closed eyes. This happened because he wasn't home, he kept thinking. If he were here this could have been prevented. In the next breath, Louis choked out a sob, clutching her hand like a lifeline.

“I'm so sorry,” he cried. “I'm so, so sorry.”

More footsteps echoed behind him, and Louis felt a hand come to rest on his shoulder. It didn't feel like Harry's, but Louis made no effort to stop. He wanted to hear Lottie's voice. He wanted to, he wanted to.

“She recovered a lot during the night,” Dan began, like any medical jargon would help the very clear image of Lottie in a fucking coma. “It's only a medically-induced coma. It didn't look good before, but now, now they say it's probably going to be okay.”

“What if she doesn't wake up?”

“They're certain she will.”

“Yeah, but what if she doesn't wake up? What if I never hear her again?”

“Your mum wouldn't like you to think like that,” Dan frowned.

Louis snapped. “Well, she's fucking dead, so what good does that do?”

“Louis!”

“It's true, isn't it? We had to walk around her in the living room because she was in a coma. My mum died while she was in a coma. Now Lottie's here, so what hope do I have? Nothing has ever turned out right before. Nothing-”

“And my girlfriend died while she was in a coma. And I know she would like to keep up the positivity. Lottie was her daughter, too.”

Louis' furrowed his eyebrows, lower lip quivering. He knew, somewhere in his stupid raddled brain, that Dan was right, but it was all too much. Their faces haunted his dreams, his waking, everything.

“It never stops, you know?” he said, voice cracking. “It never stops. I always think about her, every second of day and night. I miss her so much it hurts, all the damn time. A-and to see Lottie here, in the same state. I can't see it.”

“I know.” Louis thought bitterly that he didn't. “I think about her every day, too.”

Louis scoffed. “Okay.” He faced Lottie again, rubbing his face in exasperation.

“I thought about you, too,” Dan added. “After you decided to fuck off to live with the polar bears. Lottie walked into the house and told me you were leaving. Did you know that I tried to run after your car?”

“I tried not to look back.”

“You wouldn't talk to me, you wouldn't answer anyone. We were all worried sick about if you were even  _alive,_  Louis. If you were ever coming back or if you'd frozen in some snow and left us.”

“I never did that.”

“Did you think about it?”

Silence. Of course Louis thought about it.

“Well, I'm glad you didn't.”

Louis cast a glance towards Harry, sat in a plastic chair against the wall. Louis was glad, too.

They all watched Lottie's steady breathing for long moments before Dan spoke up again.

“Was Svalbard worth it?”

“Yes,” Louis answered immediately. He didn't regret going. He regretted a lot of things, but experiencing Svalbard and falling in love with Harry weren't among them.

“I had to Google where it was.”

“I love it there.”

Dan nodded.

They didn't say much else. Louis pulled up a chair to the edge of the bed, resting his elbows on the mattress and watching Lottie breathe for hours on end. Dan settled back in the plastic chair next to Harry. At some points, they mumbled courtesies to each other, but other than that, the room was silent. The only things that existed were Louis and Lottie.

As the clock hit three, Dan eased out of the creaking plastic.

“I have to go be with the girls,” he sighed. “Are you staying here tonight?”

“Yes,” Louis nodded. He needed to be as close as possible for right now.

“Then I'm going to cook them dinner and be there so they don't need a babysitter.” Dan walked to the other side of the bed, gently pushing Lottie's hair off her forehead. He kissed her on the forehead, picked up his bag, and made for the door. “Bye.”

He vanished from the room, leaving behind the two of them alone and not alone. Louis shifted his gaze from Lottie to Harry, practically nodding off in his seat. For a moment, he felt terribly guilty for letting Harry sit like that for hours on end. As soon as Dan left, he shook his head to wake himself up.

“You should get a hotel room,” Louis said as Harry dragged his plastic chair over to him. Harry contemplated the idea. “Or at least crash at the house.”

“I don't know,” Harry replied, pursing his lips.

“The pull out in the corner only holds one person.”

“We made do with that for months, didn't we?”

Louis laughed lifelessly.

“Are you feeling a bit better?” Harry asked.

“I think,” Louis said, drawing in a breath, “a little bit. Or maybe not. But I think so. Like, seeing her. It hurts, but I know she's here.”

“That's good.” Harry wrapped an arm around his shoulder despite the space of the two chairs. “If I leave, I'm coming back at, like, six am.”

“I'm okay with that,” Louis agreed.

“Alright,” Harry said. “You sure?”

“You need a proper bed,” Louis assured.

“You do, too. But if you're sure. I think you want to be alone with her... so I'll let you.”

Louis smiled gratefully, small but there. Harry withdrew his arm and stood up, stretching his fingertips towards the ceiling.

“Wait, I need-” Louis started, climbing out of the chair. He held his arms open, looking at Harry expectantly. A grin grew on his face, deepening those cute dimples, and he came forward and enveloped Louis in a massive hug. Louis buried his nose in the crook of his neck and breathed in deeply. “Thank you.”

“No need. I do it gladly.”

Louis swore they could have fallen asleep right then and there. Harry smelled like frozen spring and afternoon naps and adventures in the unknown. Louis closed his eyes and tried to memorize the moment.

When Harry let go, Louis immediately missed him. But he knew Harry would be there in the morning, and that fueled him. Harry grabbed his backpack full of clothes for the days he would be here from the tiled floor, and turned to give one more smile. Louis wanted to tell him he loved him.

“See you tomorrow?”

“Six am sharp.”

Harry saluted Louis and backed out of the room.

In an instant, he was all alone with Lottie.

Louis fell back down into the plastic chair and watched her breath. He knew she could possibly hear him, could understand, on some vague level, the things going around her. Would it help if he talked to her? When he talked to Harry, it helped him work through the tangled threads of himself. Of course, medically the situation was different. But if he talked to Lottie, and she could hear him...

“I'm back from Svalbard,” Louis whispered into the quiet room. “It was quite cold.” Talking into a silent room felt slightly awkward, having never really done it before. When he spent days and weeks alone in his cabin, not a word was uttered. He let the silence consume him.

“The person who was just with me... You don't know him. I met him there; he rents the cabin next to mine. Well, I guess it's not mine anymore. But he goes to the university there, and we met because he broke into my cabin.” Louis laughed, suddenly realizing how silly that night was. “I thought he was a polar bear, but really, he was just a friendly neighbor trying to give me a casserole... You would like him, I think.

“Harry, the guy, he convinced me to go on adventures with him. You know, I left because I wanted to escape, and to, like, be alone. I really wanted to be alone. But then he took me to the shooting range, and we just... never left each other.” Louis stared thoughtfully out the window. Dark spilled through it, but so did the twinkling lights of Doncaster. “I meant to talk about Svalbard, sorry. Like I said, it's cold there. And black. In the winter, the sun never rises. I missed it, but coming back here after months of living in the dark was super strange.”

Louis yawned while his eyes wandered back to Lottie's eyelashes fanning her cheeks. “When – if you wake up, I'll tell you properly about Svalbard. About the adventures Harry took me on. He has his very own snow mobile.”

Glancing at the clock, Louis saw it was only six pm. “I just spent the entire day traveling, sorry. I still can't sleep very well, but I hope you don't mind if I try.” Louis stood up, leaning over the bed. A pang hit his chest when he realized he wasn't able to hug his sister with all these wires and beep machines. Instead, he copied Dan and kissed her forehead.

“I love you,” he murmured, caressing the unmarred cheek with the back of his hand. “I do hope you wake up.”

Louis left her side and went about pulling out the corner chair. There were no covers, but it wasn't particularly cold with a few layers of his snow clothes he never bothered to shed. Louis shucked his boots and attempted to get comfortable on the springy cushions. .

Despite the half day of travel, Louis spent most of the night sitting up and listening to the beeps. In addition to the lack of Harry draped against his back, he kept thinking about the last time he slept in a hospital room. The shades were drawn and he had been alone, listening to the beeps of his mother's last weeks. In the pitch black of a hospital room in the same exact ward, it was hard to differentiate between the two.

 

 

The soft whispers of two voices gradually lulled Louis awake early the next morning. Somehow, during the night, he had actually managed to nab two seconds of shut eye, though it was anxious and shallow at best. As velvety morning light streamed through the window, Louis cracked his eyes open to the cheap fabric of the hospital pull out. He was about to stretch and roll over when the voices began again, their words catching his weak attention.

“I'm glad you brought him home,” Dan said. “He seemed... not at his best on the phone.”

“I try my best to be what he needs, sir.”

“Please, just Dan.” He paused, letting the beeps fill the room. “So, strange question. Are you two, um together? I know you said you were his friend, but.”

Harry took a second to answer. “I don't know.”

“I see,” Dan hummed. “How long have you known him?”

“Basically since he got there. I think... about two weeks after he moved in? And we've spent almost every day together since then.”

“Wow. What did you do?”

“I took him places. We went on adventures, like hiking and ice caving. I think the dog sledding was his favorite.”

“That sounds incredible,” Dan gasped, almost in awe. “What a paradise.”

“It really was,” Harry said. Louis could hear the smile in his voice.

“Thank you, by the way. For doing all that for him. Thank you.”

“It was all my pleasure. Louis is amazing.”

“That he is...” Louis wrinkled his nose at all the complimenting. Even if they didn't know he could hear them. “I really do care about him. I care insanely much about all of the kids. But I was worried when he left for some place I'd never even heard of. It's good to know he spent his time having fun.”

At this, Louis didn't feel like eaves dropping anymore. He forced an enormous yawn and rolled over in the pull out, facing the two of them. They both stood at the edge of Lottie's bed, looking down upon her frozen body.

Harry caught his eyes first. “Good morning,” he greeted, a warm smile spreading across his face.

“Morning,” Louis croaked back. Harry left the bed and sat on the edge of the pull out.

“How much sleep did you get?” he asked. Louis wondered if the circles around his eyes had deepened recently.

“One or two hours,” he answered honestly, because he really didn't have the energy to lie right now.

“Me too.”

“You guys should visit home,” Dan interrupted. “Stay the night at home tonight and catch up with the girls. I can stay here tonight.”

Louis opened his mouth to protest when Dan shot him a pointed look. Not a mean one, but a please-take-care-of-yourself one. A Lottie-will-be-here-when-you-get-back look, and an if-anything-goes-wrong-I'll-call look. But Louis wanted to stay. He didn't want to leave her side, not again.

It was also a you-have-three-other-sisters-who-miss-you look, though, so maybe Louis didn't actually have an option in this. And Harry certainly wouldn't help his case of holing up in the hospital room.

“Okay,” Louis assented, though grimly.

Even so, Louis spent the morning and a small part of the afternoon beside the bed. Not talking, just being. Just existing next to her. Harry didn't try to steer him otherwise, nor did Dan. They both left somewhere around lunch to the hospital cafeteria, and Harry brought him back an eggs on toast. Louis only picked at it, but at least it was something.

“I asked the neighbor to babysit Fizzy, Daisy, and Phoebe until about now,” Dan said around four. “So they should be needing someone by now.” Louis knew he meant  _get home and say hello for the first time in ten months._  “You'll have to take a cab home, though.”

“That's okay,” Harry answered for him. He let Louis be with her for a minute longer while he gathered the bags, but the time was up too quickly. One second, he watched Lottie's chest rise and fall, the next, he stood in the threshold between the room and the stifling hospital hallway. But he had to tear his eyes off of her at one point, didn't he?

Louis left without saying goodbye to Dan. He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other on the way downstairs, the laces of the snow boots he hadn't bothered to exchange for another pair catching under the soles. Each step brought him farther away from Lottie.

Leading him through the passing wheelchairs and pinched-nose nurses, Harry took him past the front office of the hospital and outside. The fresh air bit at their cheeks, and Louis noticed Harry stare wistfully at the meager inches of snow that sparsely coated the Doncaster ground.

The cab ride was quiet, filled with only the distant radio tuned by the cab driver, and Louis rattling off his address as he slid into the false leather seats. All too soon, the car rolled to a stop in front a brown two story house, complete with a pink Barbie tricycle leaning against the side gate.

“This it?” the cabbie grunted.

“Yeah,” Louis breathed. He couldn't believe he was here again.

Louis handed the driver a pile of crumpled bills and dragged up the will to help Harry take the bags out of the back of the car, and together, they traipsed up the worn, grey stone path to the wooden front door.

“Do you think they'll remember me?” Louis wondered when they paused on the front stoop.

“Of course they will,” Harry scoffed. “Do you think they'll like me?”

“Of course they will.”

Harry bit his lip and squinted at the door handle. Louis didn't think he needed to be nervous in any capacity, honestly.

He turned to face him, tilting his head to look in Harry's eyes. “Kiss me?” Almost immediately, the worry broke and a smile grew in its place.

“Duh,” Harry said, and swooped in to peck Louis on the lips. Louis will never probably get sick of this.

“Okay, let's go inside.” Harry nodded in agreement and kissed his cheek while he pressed the door bell.

Almost instantly, a chorus of shrieks drifted through the door. Louis could pick out the tiny voices of Daisy and Phoebe and the louder cries of  _shut up!_ from Felicite as they drew closer to the entrance. In the next moment, the door was wrenched open and three little faces stared right back at the two of them.

“Louis!” Daisy screeched, the first to catapult forward and attach herself around Louis' waist.

“You're back!” Felicite yelled, and then there were three girls surrounding him. Tears welled up in his eyes as he attempted to wrap his arms around all three of them.

“Hey guys,” Louis laughed. He couldn't believe his sisters were in his arms again. It had been so long.

After the hug disbanded, Phoebe grabbed the ends of his jacket and tugged him into the house. Harry glanced back at Harry to find him grinning down at a curious Daisy.

“We missed you!” Phoebe cried.

“Who are you?” Daisy asked.

“How is Lottie?” Felicite queried.

“Whoa, slow down, slow down,” Louis said, petting Phoebe's head and gesturing for Harry to step into the house at the same time. “One at a time. I missed you guys, too.”

“Dan made us packed lunches for ten months!” Phoebe went first. “He didn't even put any candy in it like you do! He's a health nut, Louis, I hate it.”

“Well, I'll go out and buy you a big bag of candy tomorrow, how about that?” Phoebe nodded furiously, hugging his waist again.

“Who is this, Louis?” Daisy asked again, pointing at the curly haired giant standing in the foyer of a stranger's house. Louis met his eyes and couldn't help but feel a rush of love for the doofus, all wild hair and kind eyes at his cute little sisters. Now this was meeting the family, right? It certainly felt like it.

“This is Harry,” Louis said. “Say hi to him.”

Daisy peered at him up and down, inspecting everything from the boots to the dimples in his cheeks. “Hi, Harry. You have curly hair.”

“Hello,” Harry replied warmly. “Your brother's told me a lot about you guys. You're Phoebe, right?”

Daisy huffed an exasperated sigh. “Everybody does that! I'm Daisy!”

“I'm Phoebe!” Phoebe said from where she was latched onto Louis.

“You'll get it right at some point,” Louis shrugged. “And, Lottie's... okay. She's okay.” He directed the last part more towards Fizzy, who stood off to the side worrying her lip. At the words, the girl sighed in relief, then smiled wide because her actual brother, gone for ten months, was in their house again.

Louis looked around at his sisters and felt the pride swell up inside of him. They had grown so much in the past months, it was almost surreal. Fizzy's hair had gained what seemed to him a foot, and the twins just looked so much older. Honestly, who allowed them to could get this old.

“Lottie told us you went into the Arctic,” Daisy said. “To S...s...”

“Svalbard,” Harry offered before Louis could answer. “It's a tiny archipelago north of Norway. Did you know it has the northernmost city in the whole wide world?”

Daisy stared in awe at this spout of knowledge. “I like him,” she decided out loud, and Harry glanced at Louis and beamed.

“Good, I like you, too.”

Daisy giggled and turned to skip into the living room, Phoebe quickly unlatching herself and following her twin. Before Louis could move an inch to follow them, Fizzy halted him with another hug, tight and full of love.

“I missed you so much,” Fizzy said into his shoulder, muffled by the fabric. “Lottie did too.”

“I missed you girls more than anything. Thought about you every day.”

“Good. So did we.”

They released each other, and Fizzy led them into the living room where the twins were sprawled on the couch eating their sandwich dinners.

“We have to go drop our bags off in my room,” Louis announced. “It hasn't been converted, has it?”

“We wouldn't dream of it,” Fizzy replied. “But Phoebe was thinking about making it a cat paradise.”

“I would've been okay with that,” Louis said, then steered Harry up the carpeted stairs that led to the bedrooms. Louis counted the doors – one, two, three – until they reached the last one on the right. It was closed tight, with the seventh year plaque reading “PROPERTY OF LOUIS TOMLINSON” still glued onto the wood. Slowly, Louis twisted the knob and swung it open, revealing his childhood bedroom.

It was still exactly as he had left it years ago. The blue painted walls were adorned with different posters of his rebellious teenage music phase, tacked up poem print outs, and pictures drawn for him by tiny twins. A whole side was covered with a book case overflowing with a plethora of different novels, some stacked, some in rows. Even the bed was unmade, down to the book thrown onto the covers.

“Home, sweet home,” Louis sighed, dropping his rucksack with a  _thump_  onto the soft floor. He kicked off his shoes and sunk into the sweet luxury of an actual bed.

“You have a nice room,” Harry commented, carefully setting down the duffel and backpack and peering at the different objects around the room. “Lots of books.”

“Come lay down with me,” Louis said. “Just for a moment.”

Harry smiled and shrugged off his winter coat, flopping onto the bed next to Louis.

“I like your sisters,” he said.

“You'll see their bad sides soon,” Louis teased, but the smile on his face betrayed otherwise. Louis loved them to death, he really did.

“Nah. I'll like that part, too.”

Louis lay in quiet for a moment, extremely tempted to just close his eyes and relax in the moment with Harry. “I would suggest a nap, but I think the girls expect stories.”

Harry nodded in agreement. “You must be tired, though.”

“I guess.”

Harry's hand found his on the covers, engulfing it with his own. He looked like he had something to say, something on the tip of his tongue.

“You act different around your sisters,” he said, unsure of how the words felt leaving his mouth. Louis raised an eyebrow in question. “Like, you're so strong. Even with everything, you promised to buy your little sister a bag of candy in compensation for no Oreo in her lunch. You're something else, you know?”

Louis didn't know how to answer that. His heart warmed at the compliment, but a bigger part of him wanted to shut it down and deny that Louis could do anything in life at all..

“We should head back down,” is what he said instead. Harry hesitated, eventually nodding in agreement. He squeezed his hand one more time, and the two of them thudded down the stairs to join the rest of the family – not before Louis could grab his current novel out of his bag.

They were all still spread out on the sofa, tuning into some sort of trash kid's cartoon consisting of literally zero intelligent conversation. The twins seemed engrossed, but the moment they caught sight of them, they both sat up and made room on the couch.

“Tell us about Svalbard!” Phoebe asked eagerly as they plopped down on the couch, ignoring the television.

“There's a lot to say,” Louis answered wearily. He fiddled with the corners of the book pages. Ten months is a lot to relay.

“Your brother is very tired,” Harry said. “Maybe I could tell you guys stories?”

Phoebe seemed to contemplate it, tapping her chin in thought. “Fine, but only if you let us do your hair.”

Harry grinned, exchanging knowing looks with Louis. “It's a deal.”

Daisy shouted in success and hopped off the cushions in search of the girl's collection of barrettes and bobby pins. When she returned, Harry settled on the floor in front of the television and let the twins tug their fingers through his locks.

“I like your hair a lot,” Daisy said just as Phoebe asked, “Are there polar bears up there?”

“Thank you, and yes, there are. In fact, Louis and I came face to face with one while we were hiking.”

“No way!” they both gasped loudly, mouths open in shock. Even Felicite, on her phone, seemed interested.

“Yup. We'd kayaked to an island, and while we hiked the thing a massive polar bear walked right up to us. I was scared to death, but Louis was ready to swoop in and save the day until it decided to turn around.”

“Whoa!”

“My hero,” Harry sighed dreamily, throwing Louis a wink. Louis shook his head and smiled softly.

He settled into the cushy sofa, opening  _Mrs. Mike_  to the makeshift bookmark fashioned out of an old strip of Harry's maths homework.

“Did you see any more?” Daisy wanted to know.

“Not really of polar bears, but we did see reindeer.”

“Like Sven!” they both yelled.

“Shhh, your brother's tired,” Harry reminded, and they both quieted down. “Definitely like Sven. I mean, little and with white fur, but a reindeer like Sven. They're very common in Svalbard.”

Louis glanced over, noting with a laugh the amount of colorful neon barrettes already snapped into Harry's tresses. It was a cute look on him.

“That's so cool,” Daisy cooed.

As they chatted away, Louis had trouble focusing on the words on the page. For once, he realized, it was because of actual fatigue, not numbness. Harry was animatedly talking about the wonderful world of reindeer to his little sisters, and he was on the sofa with a good novel and warm air. For a moment, he could forget about all the comas, all the pain, and just... fall asleep...

Before Louis registered it, he nodded off, letting the book fall on top of his stomach as his head dropped farther back onto the sofa, lulled into the promising land of sleep. God only knows how overdue on a good night's sleep he is.

“Shh,” he heard again, a distant rumble of Harry's voice permeating the darkness closing in on Louis' mind. He felt sort of... happy. For just a moment, he could be happy... His last thought before surrendering to the pull was that come morning, he really wished Harry would still have all those barrettes in them, just so he could snap a picture...

 

 

The next day, the two of them dressed in English winter clothes and took off for the hospital when the neighbor arrived to take over babysitting the girls.

“You don't have to come with me again,” Louis said as he pulled on his shoes, some ratty pair of Vans he'd left at the house all those months ago.

“I want to,” Harry replied. That was that.

Snow floated down in tiny flakes as they trod into the hospital, cheeks rosy and hands shoved in their pockets. Louis was still put off walking around and not tumbling into giant snowdrifts, but the light dusting falling from the overcast English skies was still a bit comforting.

“We're back,” Louis announced. Dan was already sitting in a chair next to the bed. He seemed tired, purple bags under his eyes, but he threw the two of them a cheerful smile.

“The doctors just came in,” Dan said. “They said it's looking really good. Shes' healing really fast.”

Louis' jaw gaped, eyebrows pitching in surprise. “Really? So she might actually-”

“Yeah,” Dan affirmed. “She's going to wake up. They don't know when, but they're sure she will.”

“That's... oh my god.” He couldn't believe it. “That's insane.”

Dan eased out of the chair, rubbing his eyes as he grinned. “I can't really believe it either, to be honest.”

Louis managed to nod in his slight shock. He kept staring at the pale girl in the bed, feeding tube still attached to her face. She was going to wake up.

“Anyway, thank you for coming,” Dan continued. “I have to go run errands for the girls.”

“No problem,” Louis said. Dan waved them goodbye, promising to return with a food that wasn't bland hospital stuff later in the day. Louis replaced him in the chair, and Harry pulled up another one beside him.

“I almost don't want to believe she's going to wake up,” Louis admitted quietly, running his gaze over the wires wrapping around her. “Like if I do, it'll jinx it.”

Harry hummed thoughtfully. He looked happy over the news, like the positive person he was. “I think it's okay to believe it.”

“I talked to her the other night. You said that she can hear me, so I thought it would help.”

“What did you talk to her about?”

“You,” Louis blushed. Harry bit his lip to hide a grin.

“I feel honored,” he said, eyes twinkling. “Should we talk to her now?”

“Sure. Talk to her about Svalbard like you did with the girls.”

“Okay.” Harry rested his elbows on the edge of the bed, leaning forward to talk to Lottie. “Your brother came to Svalbard while I was away on a trip with the university. He rented the cabin next to mine. When I came back, there was a little light on, and I was mighty surprised because no one had lived there for a good year or so.

“So the first thing I thought to do was welcome the newcomer, because that's what you do in the tiny town of Longyearbyen. I made a casserole, and trudged through the snow to his cabin. But when I got there, the cabin was locked.”

“Like any sane person would do,” Louis interjected. Harry shook his head and laughed.

“Not in Svalbard, nobody locks their cabin! So what did I do?”

“He broke in, like the fucker he is.”

“Because I was worried. I'd never heard of anyone locking their doors before. I smashed the door open, and – well, at first I thought the neighbor would be a bearded old miner, working in Svalbard on a whim of their middle aged crisis. But in reality, the cutest boy I had ever seen popped up from under the covers of the bed.”

The red creeping up Louis' cheeks deepened, and he had to cover his mouth to hide his smile. “I don't know if Lottie wants to hear you talking about me.”

“I dunno,” Harry said, shrugging his shoulders. “I like to talk about you. She might just have to live with it.”

“Tell her about something else,” Louis urged. “Like the polar bear.”

“Alright, fine, if you really want me to.”

“Please,” he said. “Actually, do that while I use the loo.”

“Sure can do, boss,” Harry said.

Louis rolled his eyes and hurried out of the room, dodging patients in the hallway on the way to the restroom near the front desk. Once inside, he locked the door and leaned against the counter, gripping the edges.

For a moment, he breathed deeply, in and out. An overwhelming rush of love surged through him, his heart beating fast against his ribcage. God, how could Harry do that so casually? He was so forward, and fuck, Louis loved him so much.

Okay, calm down. Louis scrubbed his eyes, shaking his hair out and attempting to clear his mind of strong thoughts. When he opened his eyes again, he accidentally caught sight of his reflection in the mirror. Scrunching his nose, Louis ruffled his overgrown and knotty hair, trying to smooth it down. And, well, there was nothing to do about the almost bruise colored bags under his sunken eyes. Those were probably permanent by now. Louis sighed, turning away to use the toilet. He needed to get back to the room.

Down the hallway, Louis paused outside of the open door, listening to see if Harry was actually talking about polar bears like he asked him to.

“I don't know if he wants me telling you this,” his voice carried into the corridor. “But I think the polar bear did kind of frighten him.” Good, so he was telling stories. “But, this kind of sounds stupid now that I'm saying it out loud, I've seen so many sides of Louis, and the way he reacts when he feels he needs to protect someone... that's one of my favorites. Like, even though the thing was bigger than the both of us combined, he stood tall and just stared right back at it. He even laughed afterward, like it was a piece of cake defending us against one of the most dangerous creatures on the planet.” He paused, and Louis' heart constricted again as he digested his words. “But I mean, all of his sides are my favorite sides, so. There's not one thing I don't like about him. I think... I think I'm more than a little bit in love with him.”

Harry went on talking, but Louis couldn't hear him. Blood rushed in his ears and his heart threatened to fly out of his chest. Louis couldn't smile hard enough. Harry loved him.

Harry loved him too.

For a split second, Louis was one hundred percent ready to fly in the room and attack Harry with kisses, but then he remembered that a) Lottie was in the room, and b) he probably wasn't supposed to hear that. Harry would tell him when he was ready to. But god, did he want to. God, did he burst at the seams with it.

Louis stayed in the hallway for a minute longer, grinning so hard his cheeks hurt from it. Today was a Good News Day. Harry was in love with him, Louis more than reciprocated the feelings, and in spite of everything, he felt just a little happy. That was it. For a minute there, Louis was dancing on the deck of a boat in the Arctic Sea, and he was happy.

 

 

“The dog's name was Saskia, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember,” Harry said. “She was the cutest thing. A really fast runner, too. Well, all the dogs were fast runners.”

“Obviously,” Louis smirked. They'd both spent the night in the hospital room this time so Dan could sort out things at home, and were relaying even more stories to Lottie. She was probably sick of them talking by now.

“Anyway,” he continued. “Perrie, a friend of ours, took us on those dog sleds to this valley that's usually water, but in the winter it freezes up and gets covered with snow. There's a sort of a boat cafe that freezes into the ice every winter, so we stopped outside of it to get hot chocolate.”

“That was the best hot chocolate I've ever had,” Louis sighed. “You'd like it, Lottie. You wouldn't like the cold, but the dogs and the cafe were cute. And the valley was pretty.”

“If Louis ever takes you up, you guys have to do it again,” Harry said, and Louis nodded in agreement. He still was pretty sure he'd never go back, but you never know what the future holds.

“Definitely. You'd like Perrie, too. She has pink hair, just like you always wanted to dye it, but Mum and Dan told you that would be stupid. Which, I mean, I kind of agree.”

There was a gap in the conversation, where, if Lottie was awake, she would answer with a sarcastic comment about how it wasn't the family hair. Louis glanced away from her to Harry, catching him smile softly at nothing before going back to the frozen Lottie. Except – she wasn't frozen.

Where her previously blank face occupied the pillow, a smile stretched around the feeding tube.

“Oh my god,” Louis said. He bolted upright, hand immediately grabbing at her fingers. “Lottie?”

As Lottie's eyes cracked open, her fingers weakly squeezed his.

“Lottie!” he yelled. Harry jumped up as well, plastic chair toppling to the floor. “You're awake!”

“Holy shit,” Harry cursed. He jammed a button on the side of her bed, alerting a medical assistant, and grabbed Louis' cell off the side table.

Despite Lottie's faint awakeness, Louis remembered vaguely the articles Harry had read aloud to Louis last night, about what happens when a coma patient wakes up. In the background, he could hear Harry frantically talk to Dan on the cell.

Louis settled back down, clutching tightly at her hand but schooling his expression into something probably akin to calm.

“Hey, Lottie,” he said softly, trying to gauge how much she remembered. He opened his mouth to say something else when two nurses burst into the room.

“Did she wake up?” one asked, nudging him out of the way so she could be at her bedside.

“Yeah,” Louis answered, slightly shocked by the sudden commotion.

“That's good,” the other said excitedly, setting to work removing the feeding tube from her mouth. The first pressed a stethoscope to her chest and scanned the machines for all her vitals.

Finally, after an excruciating few minutes of helplessly watching them work, the nurses stepped back. Lottie's eyes opened fully now, although she only looked around wildly, not speaking, not moving.

Louis stepped up to her bedside gently, locking eyes with his sister. She looked weary and tired, ready to fall right back asleep.

“Hi,” Louis whispered again.

“Dan's gonna be here soon,” Harry said from behind them. Louis waved in acknowledgment, not losing eye contact with Lottie, who was staring at him curiously.

“She might not remember you,” the nurse butted in. “Or respond. It's usually the second time coma patients recognize people and begin speaking.”

But apparently, Lottie was nothing if not spectacular.

The fragile girl took one more look at Louis, disheveled and hovering over her bed, and opened her mouth slowly.

“Louis?” she croaked, shifting her hand to brush her fingers weakly against his wrist.

“Yeah,” Louis laughed wetly. God, he was crying, wasn't he? “It's me.”

“I thought I would never see you again.”

A pang of guilt hit Louis, but his smile only faltered for a moment, because Lottie was  _awake_. “Me too.”

Lottie grinned again, closing her eyes. With his other hand, Louis wiped away the tears falling down his cheeks. Her hand dropped again, resting on the covers.

“The doctor is coming right now,” a nurse said, jolting Louis out of the moment and causing him to stand straight up. “But she might be asleep again by the time he gets here. That's okay, though, don't worry.”

Lottie coughed from the bed, and all heads swiveled to her. “What happened?”

“You were in a coma,” Louis replied. “For, like, four days.”

Her eyebrows furrowed, trying to process it. Finally, she sighed and sunk back into the cushions. “If I knew this is what it took to get you back, I would have done it a long time ago.”

Barking out a laugh, Louis beamed from ear to ear. “Glad to have both of us here again, then,” he said, and when Lottie smiled lazily back, he really, really was.

 

 

“At least another week,” was what the doctors said. Lottie had to stay at least another week in the hospital, and then she might be able to come home. “She's recovering very well from her injuries, though. Charlotte is almost certain to make a full recovery and return to school by the end of the month.”

On Day 3 of Waiting for Lottie's Return, Louis and Harry offered to babysit the girls at home and let Dan stay at the hospital, like they've been switching off for the past week or so.

“Daisy,” Louis yawned, glancing at the digital clock in the corner of the living room. It read  _10:32 pm._ “You have to go to bed.”

Daisy pouted, glaring at him from behind her comic book. “It's the break,” she retorted.

“Doesn't mean you don't have to go to bed at a decent hour,” Louis argued, gently lifting the book out of her hands and placing it on the coffee table. “Fizzy is already in bed, Phoebe's practically already falling asleep, and I'm pretty sure Harry's about to pass out as well.”

“Well Harry and Phoebe can go to bed but I want to read about Batman!”

“Nope, no can do,” Louis shook his head. “Come on, let's go brush your teeth and head to bed.”

Daisy huffed in exasperation, but relented and slid off the sofa. She followed Louis into the bathroom, feet shuffling reluctantly. In compensation, Louis brushed his teeth right beside her, making faces at each other in the mirror. Phoebe shuffled in as well, sleepily shoving the tooth brush in her mouth and staring at the two of them in disgust.

“Okay, sleep time,” Louis announced, ushering the twins into their bedroom. “Do you want a bed time story?”

“We're too old for that,” Phoebe said as she climbed into bed. Daisy made a noise of agreement, throwing the covers over her and burrowing underneath.

“Suit yourself,” Louis said, raising an eyebrow. He peered from one to the other for a few seconds, but eventually accepted the weird decision to finally be too old for a good bed time story. Instead, he kicked himself off the door frame and crouched down between the two beds.

“Goodnight,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to each of their foreheads. Daisy gave him a smack on the cheek back, giggling. “I love you guys.”

“Love you, too,” they chorused, and Louis backed out of the room, flipping off the light as he went.

As the door clicked shut, an arm wrapped around Louis' waist, and he suddenly had a curly head nuzzling into his neck.

“Hey,” a low voice rumbled.

“Hi,” Louis said, letting go of the knob and wrapping his fingers around Harry's arms.

“I'm not that tired,” Harry sighed.

“I definitely am.” Louis pried Harry's arms off of him and made for the bedroom at the end of the hallway. He shrugged off his shoes and jeans, flopping down onto the fluffy covers. Harry closed the door behind him as he came in behind Louis.

“We should clean up downstairs,” Louis said, although that was honestly the last thing he wanted to do right now.

“That can wait for the morning,” Harry hummed, shucking off his own trousers and shoes before joining Louis on the bed. “But I'm still not tired.”

Louis pursed his lips in thought. “You know what we can do?”

“What?”

“My window leads to the roof. We can look at the stars like back in Svalbard,” he suggested.

“Are you crazy?” Harry scoffed, sitting up on his elbows and giving Louis an incredulous look. “We're already in our pants!”

“You're the one that always wants to go on adventures! Just put on some fucking pyjamas, let's go.”

Harry rolled his eyes, but the smile stretching his lips threatened to overtake his whole face. He hopped off the bed, digging in his bag for a pair of his warmest pyjamas.

“We're taking your duvet,” Harry declared, pulling the thing off of Louis' bed.

“It'll get wet, though,” Louis pouted.

“You have more in the linen closet. If you want to do this, we're gonna be warm doing it.” And, well, Louis couldn't argue with that.

After they both dressed up warm and Harry wrapped the duvet around himself, Louis unlatched the window and shimmied through, onto the small flat roof right outside. He waited for Harry to clamber through with all his long limbs before delicately closing it again, citing the cold ruining the heating system if it got in.

As soon as Harry cloaked the both of them in the warm duvet, they settled against the roof, nestled into each other. Harry closed his eyes and breathed in the stinging air, resting his head against the roof.

“Just close your eyes, and imagine four cabin walls and a little stove fire,” he breathed, a wisp of a smile caressing his lips.

Instead, Louis peered up at the cloudy grey sky, envisioning a blanket of stars and colors encasing the world.

“I'll miss the lights,” he said. He could picture the splashes of white and green so clearly across the twinkling black sky, like paint smeared haphazardly on a wall. “Won't really miss the cold, though.”

Harry opened his eyes, turning his head to face Louis. “Are you coming back with me?”

“I don't think so. I think it was time for me to come back.”

Though sadness struck Harry's face, he nodded like he understood. Like he watched Louis with his sisters and knew they would go separate ways soon.

“You'll miss the stars,” Harry said, gesturing to the muddy canvas above them. “The woes of civilization.”

“Civilization does come with decent WiFi, though, which is a major bonus. And a variety of foods not twice the normal price.”

“All minor offenses, though. Nothing you can't exchange for a glacier.”

Louis grinned wistfully, resting his head on Harry's shoulder. He remembered the glacier clear as if he stared at it right now, towering before them. “I'll miss the glacier. And the reindeer. And the dogs.”

“What about the dog caretaker?”

“I'll definitely miss Perrie. And then Niall, Liam, and all the rest of them. I'll miss the  _Huset_ , and its great collection of international beers and wines.”

“And?”

“And... Nils, at the shooting range.”

Harry scoffed, pushing Louis off him, though the blanket didn't let him go far.

“Wait, I'm colder now!” Louis protested.

“That was your personal choice!”

“Fine, fine,” he giggled, forcefully scooting back into Harry's warmth. “And I'll miss you.”

“Thank you,” Harry said, finally settling down and wrapping an arm around Louis' shoulder. “For the record, I'll miss you, too.”

“I think I'll miss you the most,” Louis admitted.

“I would sure hope so. I mean, I didn't spend the last ten months practically glued to your side for nothing.”

“Oh? What was it for, then?” Louis asked.

“Mainly to gain your trust, exploit your weaknesses, and leave you brokenhearted in the end because of my cruel, soulless nature which I've carefully crafted a doting persona over,” Harry replied nonchalantly, running his fingers through Louis' messy hair.

“If that's what you were going for, then I guess whenever you leave, you'll succeed... When do you leave?”

Harry's fingers halted. “Next week,” he said slowly. “School starts again the following Monday.”

Somehow, the words did actually hurt Louis' heart. What irony. Louis didn't answer, only sunk deeper into the scent of Harry's body.

“I'll miss your hair,” Harry mumbled. “And the way you cuddle. And your laughs. When you laugh, it's the cutest thing ever. Except for when you wear glasses, that's the cutest of all.”

“I'll miss how giant you are. The way you read to me, and don't mind if I fall asleep during movies. And... I'll miss how you're always there for me, even if I'm not really there for me.” Harry pulled him in closer. “And how you don't judge me for that.”

“I can't imagine why I'd ever do that,” Harry said. “I'll miss the way you're so open with me. How you trust me, like I don't think anyone has before. I'll miss how incredible of a friend you are. How you're always there for me, too, even if I don't talk about my own stuff too often.”

The conversation came to a lull, both of their hearts bursting with the sweet things hanging in the air. This seals the deal, Louis thought. We're perfect for each other.

As if he could read Louis' mind, Harry spoke up again.

“Can I tell you something?” he asked, a hint of nerves tainting his voice.

“You can tell me anything,” Louis hummed, smiling already. He could just guess what Harry was going to spill, and the idea sprung up butterflies in his stomach. Harry took a deep breath, biting his lip.

“I think I'm in love with you.” It all rushed out in one breath, quicker than anything he's ever said before. Time froze, but the grin growing on Louis' face didn't.

“You think?” he asked, a glint in his eye.

“No I – I know.”

Louis smiled so hard his cheeks hurt, and Harry smiled hesitantly back, waiting for Louis' next move.

“Good,” Louis finally said. “I already knew that.”

Harry gasped. “You did?! When?”

“I heard you telling Lottie in the hospital.”

“Oh my god, why-” Louis cut him off with a kiss, right on the lips and long overdue.

“I love you too,” he said, kissing him again. “I've loved you ever since we watched Grease and you fell asleep on me, and probably before then, too. I was just waiting for you to say it so I knew I wasn't, like, hallucinating about anything.”

“You love me?”

“I love you, to the moon and back.”

“Holy shit, that's such a relief. I thought you would – I don't know what I thought you would do. I just...” He trailed off, staring at Louis with a mix of amazement and shock and pure, unadulterated love. In lieu of finishing his sentence, he pressed his lips to Louis' again, swift and hard and every fucking thing Louis needed. Harry brought his hand to Louis cheek and Louis clutched at the fabric on his chest, bringing them ever so much closer together. His heart burst as Harry deepened the kiss. Minutes and minutes went by before Louis even realized time was passing.

Reluctantly, Louis broke them apart, panting against Harry's cheek.

“We should go inside if we don't want to catch pneumonia,” he whispered.

“Okay,” Harry agreed. “I love you.”

Louis laughed. “I love you, too.”

They struggled to undo their roof cocoon, folding the now gross blanket up and practically falling back into Louis' bedroom. For a moment, Louis worried if the noises would wake the girls up, until Harry threw the blanket in the corner and pulled Louis in close by the hips again.

“And you know what else?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

“What?”

“I love you.”

“And you're an idiot.” Louis threw his arms around Harry's neck, pecking more kisses, never enough kisses.

“Do you wanna know when I fell in love with you?” Harry mumbled between kisses, deep and shallow.

“When?”

“On the deck of the boat, when I made you dance with me,” he said, beginning to sway Louis this way and that. “Because you are my special angel, right from paradise.”

“You're going to wake the girls,” Louis laughed, slapping his arm, but Harry went right on crooning.

“I know you're an angel, heaven is in your eyes. The smile from your lips brings the summer sunshine, tears from your eyes bring the rain.” With a glimmer in his eyes, Harry took Louis' hand and spun him around, both cackling as they went. “I feel your touch, your warm embrace, and I'm in heaven again...”

 

 

“We're here,” Dan announced, braking just in time in front of the same brown two story house Lottie had been on her way home to a couple of weeks ago.

“It looks the exact same,” Lottie said, sniffing.

“Well, duh,” Louis replied. “But wait until you get inside.” Lottie gave him a suspicious look, like she couldn't trust what her sisters and Harry were up to while Dan and Louis helped her out of the hospital and into the car.

Dan hopped out of the car and jogged over to the other side. Opening the car door, he held out a hand for Lottie to hold while she carefully maneuvered herself out of the car. Even with her “swift, almost miraculous recovery”, she was wobbly on her feet, and needed to rest most of the day if she hoped to get better in time to not miss too much of school. Louis climbed out after her, taking her other hand for the rest of the walk.

“You know, I can do this just fine by myself,” she huffed, staring down at her feet.

“I know, but I want to do it,” Louis said, flashing a grin. “Can't I be happy right now?”

“Of course you can.” Lottie shyly returned the smile. “I'm happy, too.”

Finally, they reached the door, and Dan unlocked it, gesturing everyone inside.

“Why is it so dark?” Lottie asked. “I thought everyone was-”

“SURPRISE!” As Dan flicked on the lights, three little girls and one large man popped up from behind various furniture, throwing confetti in the air. Across the back of the sofa was a huge banner with  _Welcome Home Lottie!!_ emblazoned on it in various neon markers, and the ceiling was criss-crossed with streamers. Balloons coated the floor, all with a smiley face and  _get well soon!_  markered across the squeaky surfaces.

“You're home!” Daisy yelled, rushing forward to hug her sister. “We made a party for you!”

Lottie's disgruntlement was quickly forgotten, replaced by a massive grin at the set up just for her. Louis locked eyes with Harry and gave him a thumbs up. Success!

“Awww,” Lottie cried. “You guys shouldn't have.”

“We wanted to,” Fizzy said, coming up to hug her as well. “It's a special occasion.”

Everyone knew what they were all thinking. Phoebe casting a quick glance towards the corner of the living room confirmed it all. But today? Today was happy. Lottie had just come home from the hospital, and they all deserved to be happy.

“Well, thank you guys so much,” Lottie said, her voice a tad watery. “It means a lot to me. You too, Harry. Thank you.”

“No problem at all,” Harry replied, smiling warmly.

“Group hug!” Phoebe shrieked, running across the living room. In a moment, they were all crowding around Lottie, even Harry after Louis gestured for him to join. Anyone that Louis loved in this house needed to be a part of this.

“We also bought you ice cream cake!” Daisy said excitedly after they broke apart, jumping up and down.

“Ooh, let's slice it up, then.”

Dan headed into the kitchen while Louis helped Lottie plop down on the sofa, and they all gathered as close as possible. Soon enough, between the twins chatting animatedly about whatever it was Harry told them while they were out and Lottie beaming at her family, Dan came out of the kitchen with three ice cream cake paper plates balanced on his arms, promising he would be back with more. The first one was given to Lottie, presented on one knee by Phoebe.

“Thank you,” Lottie repeated, bowing her head to her sister. She took the first bite as well, as was custom at any party dedicated to one person. “Mm, very delicious.”

Dan came back again, handed out the rest of the paper plates, and settled back on the adjacent sofa with Harry, looking proudly upon all the siblings packed onto one couch.

“So, how much did you twins do?” Lottie asked between bites.

“ _Well._..”

“I did most of it,” Harry said. “But the girls played an extremely crucial role in the whole process, didn't you guys?”

“Definitely! And Fizz blew balloons!”

Lottie grinned ear to ear. “That's awesome. It looks amazing.”

The family spent hours chatting back and forth, going from stories in England while Louis was gone, to stories in Svalbard, to completely inane things that didn't even matter.

“You know, I actually did hear a lot of what you guys said to me while I was asleep,” Lottie said at one point, grinning mischievously.

“Oh?” Louis pitched an eyebrow. “What do you remember?”

“Mostly just a lot of flirting,” she giggled. “Annoying, but cute as hell.”

Harry gasped. “Hey!”

“I said it was cute! You even confessed your love to him while he wasn't there. You guys are like a fairy tale.”

The entire room cooed, Fizzy pretending to swoon. Louis rolled his eyes, but he shared a glance with Harry filled with all the love in the world. It would never get old.

“I'm going to take the plates to the trash,” Louis said, and immediately, Harry jumped up, too.

“Smitten kittens,” Lottie teased. Louis flicked her in the arm before gathering all the plates and leaving for the kitchen.

Just after Louis tossed all of them in the trash, Harry boxed him into the counter, placing a hand on either side. His curls fell into his face as he smiled at Louis, only for Louis.

“Hey,” he whispered as Louis tucked his hair behind his ear.

“Hey to you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

Harry swooped down to press a chaste kiss against Louis' lips, nothing too deep in case a small sister might wander into the kitchen. Louis tried to memorize the shape of his chapped lips, what they felt like against his.

“I'm leaving tomorrow.”

“I know,” Louis sighed. He knew he was pouting. “I'm trying not to think about it.”

“Will you drive me to the train station?”

“I'll drive you all the way to the airport if it means I get two more hours with you, to be honest.”

Harry cocked his head from side to side, contemplating the offer. “It's a done deal,” he said, and kissed him again.

“It's only for for four months,” he said. “And afterward I'm coming right here with you, or wherever you are in four months. I swear on my soul.”

Louis smoothed the front of his shirt, trying not to be too sad. “A lot can change in four months.” The sentence was soft and weak, not exactly sure if it belonged.

“Louis,” Harry said, voice strong and confident. “For as long as I have curly hair, I will come back to you from whatever part of the globe I end up in. Australia? No problem. I'll be in your arms on the same day as I leave. Svalbard? Piece of cake. You know why?”

Louis grinned. He knew what was coming. “Why?”

“Because I love you. And I will never get sick of saying that.”

“Me neither. I love you, too.”

“Good, now that we have that covered.” Harry pushed Louis' hair out of his eyes, leaning down for one more kiss before they had to go back out.

“Louis! Harry!” a girl yelled from the living room. “You're taking too long and you have to tell Lottie about the time you went ice caving!”

Harry groaned, pushing off the counter and taking a step back.

“Plenty of time for kissing at night, Harry,” Louis reminded him, throwing a wink and walking out of the kitchen. Harry caught up with him, taking his hand firmly in his and not wanting to let go any time soon. Together, they nestled onto the couch between all of the girls, already crowded enough as it was.

“We went with two of our friends,” Harry began, “on our snow mobiles, up to a glacier. Glaciers have natural caves, so Liam found us one...”

As Harry barreled on through the story, all the girls hanging on every word he had to say, Louis couldn't help but glance around the room. His heart swelled seeing all his girls, Dan, and, practically best of all, Harry in one room, bonding and laughing and just existing in each other's presences. Lottie shared a hug with two little girls, and Fizzy nodded along from her place on the armrest of the sofa. Dan, on his own little sofa, smiled contently at the picture before him. And Harry, beautiful Harry, still gripped his hand tight, the other arm wrapped around his shoulder like the lifeline they were to each other. And even though he counted one crucial missing part, one that all of them felt, he knew that their little family was good just as it was. Because even though it was patched, and even though some screws were missing, it was all okay.

It was all going to be okay.

 

 

AN EPILOGUE

 

 

_Tell me not, in mournful numbers,_

_Life is but an empty dream!_

_For the soul is dead that slumbers,_

_And things are not what they seem._

_\- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Psalm of Life_

 

 

The airport seat was uncomfortable, whether because Louis had been sitting in it for the past hour or the fact that it was plain just not well built, Louis didn't know. But it didn't matter. Louis' knee bounced with jitters, and his eyes scanned the arrivals area nervously for what seemed like the fifty billionth time. The plane was supposed to land an hour ago. At least, that was what the website said when Louis left the house, keys and wallet in hand, and drove for Manchester. But now, it was an hour delayed, and the cheap airport coffee certainly wasn't helping.

For hopefully the last time, Louis pushed himself out of the chair and jogged to the arrivals time board, scanning for arrivals from Oslo, Norway.

There it was. SAS Airlines, arriving late at 9:05 am. Louis glanced down at the clock on his cell screen. 9:04.

Even more nervously, Louis headed back to the area, although he didn't sit down again. Instead, Louis weaved through the crowd already gathering outside the gate, popping up on his toes every once in a while to check if anyone was coming through. Nothing yet.

Closing his eyes, Louis took a deep breath, trying to center himself and not let the nerves overcome him. It was easy too, though. Four months was a long time to go without seeing someone. What if he looked different? Not that they didn't Skype last week, but. Anything was possible in four months.

Just as Louis opened his eyes, the first cries of joy sang out over the crowd. A little girl ran from the gate to a women at the edge of the small crowd, dropping her suitcase and flying into her arms. They spoke fast Norwegian to each other, something Niall would understand if he were here, probably.

Biting his lip, he kept trying to peek past the gate, past to where all the passengers were rolling through, one by one. A grandpa, a couple back from vacation, and a moody teenager all left the area, heading for their designated pick ups. Another couple, arms full of shopping bags, and -

Finally,  _finally,_  Louis spotted a head of curly hair heading towards the crowd. His heart soared, and the audible squeal scared an old lady to his right, but Louis didn't care. After four months, there was Harry.

The moment Harry crossed the  _Do Not Cross_  line into the main airport, Louis burst through the rest of the gathering, sprinting straight for him.

“Harry!” he yelled. Instantly, Harry whipped around to his voice. The moment he realized where Louis was was the moment he crashed into him, knocking them both back a few paces.

“Louis!” Harry  _oofed._ “Louis, oh my god.”

They both heard the  _thump_  of Harry's bags hitting the floor, but they didn't register it, only squeezing their eyes tight and squeezing each other tighter. After four grueling months, Harry's arms felt like heaven around Louis' waist, and he never wanted to let go. Oh my god, Harry was back.

“I missed you so much,” Louis said, muffled into Harry's coat. He inhaled deeply, drinking in the scents he went without for too long. There was the eternal northern winter, the sweet scent of vanilla and aftershave, and Harry, Harry, Harry.

“I missed you more,” Harry returned, hugging momentarily closer before loosening just enough that they could face each other.

“That's impossible.” Louis beamed so wide his face hurt, and Harry returned the sentiment. For a good half minute, they just studied each other, checking to see if everything was still the same. Harry's eyes were still just as green, his hair just as springy, and his dimples just as deep, maybe even deeper.

“Have you cut your hair?” Harry asked, ruffling the fringe with his fingers.

“Yeah, I wanted it to look nice,” Louis replied sheepishly, ducking his head.

“You look gorgeous,” he grinned. “As always.”

“Right back at you.” If anything, Harry looked even more beautiful, everything from the widow's peak to the tips of his toes radiating with some kind of Coming Home, Finally Seeing Louis Again, aura. Louis didn't know how he survived those four months at all. “I can't believe you're here.”

“Neither can I,” Harry laughed. “But I'm glad I am. I love you so much.”

“I love you, too. More than anything.”

“That's good to know that you still do,” Harry said, and kissed him in the middle of the airport. And god, did it feel so good. Harry was a drug Louis was relapsing on, and he would never be able to kiss him enough.

“So,” Harry said as they broke away. “How's it?”

“Okay, yeah,” Louis nodded, still smiling. “Lottie just went to a dance with some guy from her school, so Dan and I are teaming up to interrogate him. Felicite just had her first dance recital, which was incredible and made me proud. Um, let's see... The twins were caught switching tests yet again. Oh! And one more thing.”

“What is it?”

Louis paused for dramatic effect. “I got the job.”

Just like he thought it would, Harry's jaw dropped, hands freezing where they rested on Louis' biceps. “Oh my god, you got the job? That's amazing? That's more amazing, that's fucking incredible! That's -” he cut himself off and kissed Louis again, teeth clacking from both of them smiling so goddamn much. “I'm so proud of you. You're a columnist now! For a newspaper! When did you find that out?”

“I am, yeah. I found out four days ago, but I wanted to keep it secret until you go there. To surprise you.”

“That's, wow. I love you so much, that's amazing.”

Beside them, the last person from the flight from Oslo filed out of the gate, and both of them seemed to notice where they actually were at the same time. Harry kissed him one last time before letting go to pick up his bags, Louis shouldering one of the three. They walked hand in hand towards the luggage carousel, although it proved difficult because neither one wanted to take their eyes off each other.

“So what about you?” Louis asked, swinging their hands.

“Me? Well, excited to only have one more year of college, and blessed that my dad is recovering enough that he still has a lot longer to live. Who knew that would happen? Also excited to be transferring to Manchester University, only two hours away from my boyfriend.” Harry knocked their shoulders, letting the exciting information that he had shared with Louis over the phone weeks ago sink in in real life.

“Lots of good stuff, right there,” Louis agreed. “I think Manchester Uni is a great choice. Super close. A lot closer than an isolated archipelago of two thousand.”

Harry laughed, shaking his curls. Louis felt he could pass out from how happy he was right then, from how Harry was here, in the flesh, after four months. Long distance was never a thing for them.

Louis seemed to be a lot happier these days, that's what Harry could tell over the phone and on Skype. He still had his bad days – in fact, most days were at least half bad days. There were days he couldn't bring himself out of bed, and days where existing felt like a chore at the bottom of the to do list. But then there were days like this, days he thought he would never get to keep just over a year ago, and he knows life is getting better. In the ashes of tragedy, life rises again. And yeah, it's good.

Life is just good.

 

 

_Let us, then, be up and doing,_

_With a heart for any fate;_

_Still achieving, still pursuing,_

_Learn to labor and to wait._

_\- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Psalm of Life_

  
  


 

**Author's Note:**

> the very first quote i took straight out of my ap world history text book from last year.
> 
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> [Thanatopsis - William Cullen Bryant](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/180813)
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> "my sweet nightingale, my rose, your eyes like the stars" - a line out of [this book](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bean_Trees)
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> [A Letter to Her Husband - Anne Bradstreet](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/180631)
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> [A Psalm of Life - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173910)
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> 
> thank you SO incredibly much for reading if you got this far! have a lovely day! kudos, comments, and bookmarks are cherished forever if you decide to leave them <3


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